In the first installment of our series on George Mann's newly-discovered vintage Los Angeles restaurant photos, we introduced you to Mann's custom 3-D photo viewer, which provided free entertainment to patrons as they waited to be seated in numerous L.A. restaurants, and to images of the Malibu restaurants that were displayed inside the viewers.

In mapping the restaurant exteriors that George selected to feature in his viewers, we discover he traveled widely throughout Southern California, and that when he found a subject that appealed to him, he'd explore the area looking for other sites worth photographing.

Today, let's tag along as George immortalizes the 1950s-era dining options of the tony Bixby Knolls neighborhood of Long Beach, in a short but colorful cruise down Atlantic Boulevard.

photo: George Mann

George Mann Archives

Today On Bunker Hill is proud to present another little something special from the archives of George Mann, an artifact that predates his astonishing color photographs of Bunker Hill by about thirty years.

Before he came up to the hill to take pictures, George was half of the comedic vaudeville dance team Barto & Mann. In 1928, he filmed his friend W.C. Fields in that comic performer's headlining role in the Earl Carroll Vanities, at Carroll's 7th Avenue Manhattan theater. Barto & Mann were also on the bill.

"The Mormon's Prayer" was an opportunity to highlight the famously stunning Carroll showgirls (choreographed by Busby Berkeley) while giving the urban audience a chance to snicker at the erotic excesses of backwoods believers. We're truly thrilled to present to you this lost moment of American theater history, as a follow-up to the newly discovered color George Mann footage of the Three Stooges at Atlantic City.

Today On Bunker Hill is proud to present a little something special from the archives of George Mann, an artifact that predates his astonishing color photographs of Bunker Hill by about twenty years.

George Mann's son Brad Smith writes: "Long tucked away in closets, attics, garages and basements as I’ve moved from the west coast to the east coast and 30 years ago back again to live in Berkeley, California are three storage containers with about 50 reels of film, each about 400’ long.  They were taken by my biological father, George Mann, a vaudeville headliner and half of the somewhat risqué comedic dance team of Barto and Mann.  Many of the shots were of his fellow vaudevillians, most long forgotten, but some names are still known today. 

One such act was The Three Stooges.  The following never-before-seen, two-minute clip of The Three Stooges, taken in 1938 when they were on the same bill at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, includes George and my mother.  It’s quite a smile for me to master the steps involved to digitize, edit and post this clip.  I hope watching it makes you smile too.

Hillzapoppin' in the OBH!  A couple swanky new color images emerged from the greater Mann grotto and the good people at the archives wanted to share them with you.  Ain't they the best?

This image is later than the other Manns (Menn?) we've seen.  (Given the specific progress made on the Union Bank tower, I'd peg this photo at September 1966).  By comparison, here's one of late-50s vintage you've seen before:

The Community Redevelopment Agency got their wreckers and worked from top to bottom; started with the Elks in the autum of 1962, then hit the Hulburt (middle) and finished the Ferguson on Hill in '63.

With Angels Flight's Western Wall removed, you then see these two characters in images of the Flight, but they were chewed up pretty quickly.