:: Tonight at 10 p.m. on KCBS/2, CBS repeats its 48 Hours Mystery program on L.A.'s infamous unsolved Black Dahlia murder.
First aired last fall, the newsmag picked up on the controversial book by Steve Hodel, "Black Dahlia Avenger," in which Hodel put forward a compelling argument that his father, Dr. George Hodel, was behind the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia.
48 Hours interviews Hodel at length, as well as scribe James Ellroy, who publicly defended Hodel's theory.
After giving both sides of the story, 48 Hours comes up empty:
The bottom line: L.A.'s most famous unsolved murder may never be solved.
Shocked and angered by the LAPD's response, Steve also dismisses the findings of two handwriting experts hired by 48 Hours and the LAPD -- who both said they were not convinced that the handwriting in the killer's letters matched Dr. George Hodel.
"It's my father's handwriting," says Steve. "I don't have to be convinced. I don't need an expert to tell me. I know it as a fact."
Why is he so determined to prove that his father was the Black Dahlia killer? "Because it's the truth," says Steve.
:: Tomorrow at 9:30 p.m. (and repeated Saturday at 9 p.m.) on KCET/28, PBS' "Independent Lens" series presents Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story, a look at the destruction of the community that would eventually be paved over by Dodger Stadium.
Narrated by Cheech Marin, with music by Ry Cooder, the documentary picks up from photographer Don Normark's haunting book "Chavez Ravine, 1949: A Los Angeles Story," made up of photos taken by Normark in the years before the neighborhood was dismantled.
Notes the documentary: Little did Normark know that he was capturing the last images of a place that was about to disappear—within a few short years, the entire neighborhood would be gone.
During the early 1950s, the city of Los Angeles forcefully evicted the 300 families of Chavez Ravine to make way for a low-income public housing project. The land was cleared and the homes, schools and the church were razed. But instead of building the promised housing, the city—in a move rife with political controversy—sold the land to Brooklyn Dodgers baseball owner Walter O’Malley, who built Dodger Stadium on the site. The residents of Chavez Ravine, who had been promised first pick of the apartments in the proposed housing project, were given no reimbursement for their destroyed property and forced to scramble for housing elsewhere.
Fifty years later, filmmaker Jordan Mechner explores what happened, interviewing many of the former residents of Chavez Ravine as well as some of the officials who oversaw the destruction of the community.
:: This Saturday at 8:30 p.m. on IFC, catch Xan Cassavetes' documentary "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession."
This IFC Original documentary pays tribute to the troubled, film obsessed Jerry Harvey, whose brilliant programming of the 1970s LA-based pay cable service, Z Channel, featured such influential innovations as director's cuts, film tributes, international festivals and pre-Academy Award® screenings of nominated films. Features interviews with Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, James Woods, Jim Jarmusch and Alexander Payne.
It's an interesting take on the early pay cable culture and the disturbing life of Jerry Harvey, who wound up eventually killing his wife and himself.
One quibble about the doc, though: Cassavetes frequently shows establishing shots of Los Angeles' skyline in what appears to be grainy, 8 mm film. Must have been taken in the 1970s, then, right? Would make sense, just to lend credence to the time period documented in the film.
Except, right in the middle of that grainy, 1970s capture of the skyline? The U.S. Bank Library Tower -- which was erected in 1989.
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