by kbronson | Nov 13, 2025 | Episodes
In this episode, we step back into San Francisco at the end of the roaring twenties, when bootleggers, blackhanders, and quiet Mafia bosses carved out invisible empires in North Beach. It was a time when the city’s underworld tried to keep its violence out of sight —...
by kbronson | Oct 19, 2025 | Episodes
REFERENCES: NOIR CITY 41, in which the cover story, “Queen of the Cutters,” sees Mary Mallory discuss the career of editor Viola Lawrence, and the role that she played in shaping Orson Welles’ confounding masterpiece The Lady from Shanghai. The KL Studio Blu-ray...
by kbronson | Oct 11, 2025 | Episodes
Welcome back! You’re tuning into Part Two and the conclusion of our deep dive into the San Francisco Examiner’s 1944 sensation: “WOMEN IN SALOONS—The Shame of My Sex,” by the legendary, if controversial, author Gertrude Atherton. If you...
by kbronson | Oct 2, 2025 | Episodes
In this episode of The Secret History of Frisco, we’re diving into the San Francisco Examiner’s sensational 1944 moral crusade against Barfly Women and the threat they posed to the social fabric of San Francisco. The paper hired the renowned 86-year-old...
by kbronson | Aug 22, 2025 | Episodes
TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to the Secret History of Frisco Podcast. I’m your host, Knox Bronson. I have a fun episode today, a bit of a departure in that it’s a verbatim reading of a portion of an oral history, the interviewing of former California Attorney...
by kbronson | Aug 12, 2025 | Episodes
This episode of “The Secret History of Frisco” podcast introduces listeners to Jimmie Tarantino, a man described as a “louse, a blowhard, a barely literate, anti-Communist shake-down artist.” The episode delves into Tarantino’s...
