It’s late September 1942 and Marvin Mischnick is in the army and stationed in Los Angeles. Late one Saturday night (actually early Sunday morning) while out with some friends Marvin spots an attractive young lady (one Mildena Bates), chases her down and introduces himself. They go to a bar where they have a beer, kiss and then head to the movies where they make out some more. How do I know all this? Because in 1946 Marvin returned to L.A. and photographed all of the places they went that night and many other places where they spent time during his time in L.A. There are also shots of the spot where they got engaged and multiple locations where they made “passionate married love” after they moved to Chicago. It’s an amazing record of their relationship as well as a great look at downtown L.A. in the mid-40s. Click here to see them all.
p.s. Spoiler Alert: Sadly the last photo in the series is the last photo I have of them together. It was taken on Thanksgiving Day in 1947in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago. But by 1948 (as far as I can tell from my rudimentary googling) Mildena was back in L.A. while Marvin remained in Chicago and became a commercial photographer. He died in 2018 at the ripe old age of 99 and his obituary (which might be as good as the photos themselves) makes no mention of Mildena whatsoever.
UPDATE: To see more photos taken by Marvin click here!