John Bengtson's Blog, page 17

Buster with a Bullitt – Keaton and Steve McQueen’s SF Stunts

Recent posts show Buster Keaton crossed paths with Orson Welles in Venice, California (The High Sign and Touch of Evil), and with Alfred Hitchcock in San Francisco (Day Dreams and Vertigo). This time Keaton and ‘King of Cool’ actor Steve McQueen cross paths filming stunts in the City by the Bay.

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Click to enlarge – different actors, different stunts. Keaton falls from a cable car, while McQueen races his Mustang – matching views from Day Dreams and Bullitt.

Intrepid reader ‘Skip’ sensed that McQueen’s celebrated car chase in Bullitt (1968) must somehow intersect with Keaton and Hitchcock’s San Francisco locations, and he was right. Skip found this Bullitt view matching Keaton’s Day Dreams looking SE down Columbus Avenue, with the same prominent apartment block at Mason and [image error]Greenwich at back. These comparison views above highlight San Francisco’s decades-long process of acquiring city landmarks. The striking twin church spires appearing at back in the Bullitt shot belong to the Saints Peter and Paul Church at 666 Filbert Street (how did they get that address?), completed in 1924. The church doesn’t appear in the Keaton frame because Buster filmed there in 1922. (Photo: Kjetil Ree.)

The church spires don’t appear below in this 1922 Day Dreams view north at Washington and Powell (visible at back in the modern view) for the same reason.

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Washington and Powell today – the Saints Peter and Paul spires peek out at in the far distance.

[image error]While Keaton’s views lack the church spires, the Bullitt frame also lacks a landmark, one of the City’s most iconic, the Transamerica Pyramid. Once the City’s tallest building, it dominates any view looking SE down Columbus today. But the Pyramid is nowhere to be seen with McQueen because the tower didn’t begin construction until 1969, the year after Bullitt was released. (Photo: Daniel Schwen.)

Skip also found a three-way Keaton/Hitchcock/McQueen connection, as Jimmy Stewart’s apartment in Vertigo (1958) stands at the corner of Lombard and Jones, overlooking the block of Lombard to the east where Keaton flees an army of police in Day Dreams. During the Bullitt chase, McQueen drives south down Jones towards the corner of Lombard, with Stewart’s apartment (red box above) appearing to the right.

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During the thrilling car chase in Bullitt, Steve McQueen drives south down Jones towards Jimmy Stewart’s corner Vertigo apartment on Lombard (box).

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From Vertigo, a view east down Lombard, and the block Buster fled (arrow) in Day Dreams. In the Bullitt scene above, McQueen drives left to right along Jones past Jimmy Stewart’s red chimney apartment on the left corner. Read more about Keaton and Vertigo HERE.

[image error]Aside from his stunt scene falling off a cable car, Keaton filmed another Day Dreams scene at nearly the same spot, looking east on Lombard from Columbus, where Buster grabs hold of a passing cable car. Shown here, Buster stands in the intersection of Columbus and Lombard, steps from where he later falls off the car. Here too, Keaton’s frame lacks another City landmark – the Coit Tower monument appearing at the upper right was completed in 1933. (Photo: Kkmd.)

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Matching views east along Lombard from Columbus (look at all the available parking in 1922!). Coit Tower was completed in 1933.

[image error]Skip, who lives in Illinois, also ingeniously discovered the Safety Last! mystery building (the Dresden Apartments, 1919 W 7th Street), the still standing 4 story building human spider Bill Strother climbs early in the movie – read HERE).

You can download a PDF tour of all of Keaton’s San Francisco filming locations HERE. For anyone interested in reading more about the famous Bullitt and Vertigo filming locations, I highly recommend the entertaining and meticulous classic-era San Francisco movie location blog ReelSF. You’ll find a full breakdown of Bullitt HERE, and a full breakdown of Vertigo HERE.

Today the Transamerica Pyramid looms at back over Columbus Avenue.

Filed under: Buster Keaton, San Francisco Tagged: Alfred Hitchcock, Bullitt, Buster Keaton, San Francisco then and now, Silent Comedians, Silent Comedies, Silent Movie Locations, Steve McQueen, then and now, Vertigo

Keaton and Orson Welles – A High Sign Touch of Evil

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Buster flashes ‘the High Sign.’

Prior posts discuss Orson Welles and Chaplin (Citizen Kane – Modern Times), and Keaton and Alfred Hitchcock (Day Dreams and Vertigo), so how about Keaton and Orson Welles? Their paths crossed too, filming in Venice, California. As I explain in my books, and in several posts, Venice was a very popular place to film; Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd all filmed there frequently. In fact, Chaplin’s public debut of his Little Tramp character was even filmed in Venice, during the Kid Auto Races (what were they? – read HERE).

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Bison Archives – Marc Wanamaker

As was so often the case, the benign silent movie locations from the 1910s-1920s would become, after decades of accumulated grime and neglect, the stark and seedy landscapes perfect for noir dramas and crime stories. Thus, the beautiful Venice-inspired seaside resort appearing in Keaton’s 1920 produced short The High Sign would portray a corrupt Mexican border town in Touch of Evil (1958). As shown here, the Hotel St. Mark building at the NE corner of Windward Avenue and Speedway (now one of the few remaining original structures), appears in both productions (see matching boxes above).

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A view north, 1920, with part of the Abbott Kinney amusement pier at the left, and the corner of Windward and Speedway (box), with the arrow matching the points of view shown above. LAPL

Welles greatly respected and admired Buster Keaton.  During his introduction of The General for the Paul Killiam television series The Silent Years, Welles recalled working with Buster at the old Stage Door Canteen during WWII, describing Buster as “a lovely person, and a supreme artist, and I think one of the most beautiful people that was ever photographed.” He continued that Buster was “as we’re now beginning to realize, the greatest of all the clowns in the history of the cinema.”  Of The General, Welles rated it “one of the great films of all times, one of my favorites.” Welles further stated “in fact, I think it’s THE Civil War movie, nothing ever came near it. Not only for beauty but for the curious feeling of authenticity. … It’s one hundred times more stunning visually than Gone With The Wind.”

Knowing this, it’s fun to imagine what Welles would have thought had he learned his celebrated continuous tracking shot opening Touch of Evil was staged in Venice at the same spot where Buster had filmed his very first independently produced movie.

Filmed at Venice; Chaplin – Kid Auto Races in Venice, By the Sea, The Adventurer, and The Circus, Keaton – The High Sign, The Balloonatic, and The Cameraman, Lloyd – Young Mr. Jazz, By the Sad Sea Waves, Number Please?, Why Pick on Me?, and Speedy.

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A view east down Windward Avenue in Venice. Bison Archives – Marc Wanamaker

Below, a 2011 view of the former Hotel St. Mark appearing in The High Sign and A Touch of Evil. The two center windows on the top floor were once covered by six narrow Gothic arches that have since been removed.

Filed under: Buster Keaton, Orson Welles, Venice Tagged: A Touch of Evil, Buster Keaton, film noir, film noir locations, Keaton Locations, Orson Welles, Silent Comedians, Silent Movie Locations, Silent Movies, then and now

Keaton and Hitchcock’s Vertigo Day Dreams

[image error]Filmed on location in San Francisco, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Vertigo (1958) provides tantalizing mid-century glimpses of the City in sparkling VistaVision color. Remarkably, when Scottie (James Stewart) traces Madeleine (Kim Novak) by car back to his own apartment, they cross paths twice with Buster Keaton. It turns out Keaton filmed many scenes from Day Dreams (1922) (inset left) and a key scene from The Navigator (1924) in San Francisco. (You can download a Keaton – San Francisco PDF tour HERE). Why Keaton chose to film here remains a tantalizing mystery. Perhaps it was simply a fun way to combine work with pleasure, justifying trips from Hollywood.

Madeleine and Scottie in Vertigo, and Buster in Day Dreams, all traveled east along Washington, with Madeleine and Scottie turning left (north) onto Powell, while Buster, traveling by cable car, turned right (south). The same building on the NE corner (red box below) appears in both shots, and remains unchanged today.

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Vertigo – Day Dreams, the same NE corner of Washington and Powell. Keaton (oval) sits in the cable car.

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Washington and Powell today – nothing is missing, an Art Deco parking structure fills the vacant lot.

More remarkably, Scottie’s apartment on 900 Lombard overlooked a nightmarish chase scene from Day Dreams, as Buster flees an army of cops south down Lombard from Jones. To begin, as Scottie, dumbfounded, realizes he has followed Madeleine towards his own apartment, his point-of view through the car windshield (below) shows the block of Lombard where Buster fled the police.

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From Scottie’s car we see Madeleine’s green Jaguar parked beside his corner apartment with red chimney at left, and a clear view down the block Buster fled (arrow) in Day Dreams.

Below, you can even see the corner site of Scottie’s yet to be constructed apartment at Lombard and Jones (yellow) during Buster’s chase, while a Hyde Street cable car (red) passes by along the crest of the hill.

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Click to enlarge – view west from Taylor and Lombard – Scottie’s apartment will be built on the yellow corner of Jones. Notice the second floor witnesses to the far left, and the gleeful kids running along to the right. Were the famous twists and turns already constructed, or is the road above the red line (Leavenworth) simply torn up?

The shot above also reveals further at back the block of Lombard now world-famous for all the twists and turns. To my eye the roadway for the block west of Leavenworth (red line) looks torn up, but before the prominent curved cement retaining walls were installed. I’ve tried to pin down when exactly the twists and turns were built, and when Buster was here filming, but the answers are elusive.

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SF Public Library

At the time the Lombard street improvement was hardly newsworthy, affecting only the handful of residents living on the block. An August 1, 1922 letter to the editor in the San Francisco Chronicle reports construction plans were presented to the homeowners for approval, and that by mid-June the cobblestones lining the street were dug up. However, complains the letter-writer, the serpentine project was halted because one of the owners was in Europe and wasn’t ready to give his consent, forcing his neighbors to live with the dust, inconvenience, and delay. “Fourteen American property owners and the city’s engineer’s office halted upon orders from Europe – wealth and political influence! Some of us have had our first lesson in what makes a Bolshevik” seethes the letter-writer, signing off anonymously as “FAIR PLAY.”

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View east of torn up road – SF Public Library

The initial plans for the project are dated June 6, 1922, and a further plan, apparently the “as-built” plan is dated December 11, 1922, showing a November 5, 1923 revision regarding the stairways. So the project was likely completed well after August 1, but before the December rainy season. My best guess is Buster filmed here some time during the summer, after the road was torn up in mid-June, but before the major construction commenced. PS – apparently this section of Lombard was two-way until 1939! Can you imagine driving up this street?

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Lombard looking west – this setting was the very first Keaton location I would identify.

Hitchcock filmed Vertigo in San Francisco in part because its dizzying streets and hills create a mood of imbalance and uncertainty. 36 years before him, Buster recorded his fever-pitched Day Dreams of persecution and pursuit on those very same streets. To see all of the Vertigo filming locations, check out Reel SF. I highly recommend this entertaining and meticulous classic-era San Francisco movie location blog.

Vertigo (C) 1958 Paramount Pictures. Day Dreams from Buster Keaton: The Shorts Collection 1917 – 1923 (C) 2016 Kino-Lorber, Lobster Films.

Looking east down Lombard towards Scottie’s apartment, in 2011, before it was remodeled.

Filed under: Buster Keaton, Daydreams, San Francisco Tagged: Alfred Hitchcock, Buster Keaton, Day Dreams, Keaton Locations, Lombard Street, San Francisco then and now, Silent Comedians, Silent Comedies, Silent Movie Locations, Silent Movies, Vertigo

Keaton’s Cops and Go West – Peeking Over the School Fence

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Two appearances – the school in The Fireman and Sherlock Jr.

Pre-dating 1912, the successor to the Vine Street Elementary School still stands between Romaine and Willoughby, kitty-corner from the site of the former Keaton Studio block in Hollywood. The back of the school, with its distinctive series of chimneys, appears during scenes filmed looking south down Lillian Way both in Charlie Chaplin’s The Fireman (1916) and in Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. (1924). The school also appears (far left, below) during Buster’s race to the rescue in College (1926), as he turns north from Lillian Way onto west along Romaine, fleeing past the abandoned Metro Studio offices standing across the street from his studio.

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The current school campus was built in 1922, 1926, and re-built in 1936.  Reportedly Mrs. Eleanor Keaton attended kindergarten here at the time Buster was filming Sherlock Jr.

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Looking south from Romaine down Vine along the school, notice the sets at right – 1928. USC Digital Library

Remarkably, the far right background of this 1928 photo of the school (above) provides a sneak peek over the Metro Studio fence (due south of the Keaton Studio), to reveal a conspicuous 5-arch backlot set appearing in Cops (1922), Three Ages (1923), and Go West (1925). Although the Hollywood Metro Studio closed in 1924 to join M-G-M in Culver City, Keaton continued to make use of the abandoned studio’s backlot, particularly when filming the many cattle stampede scenes from Go West.

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The five arch Metro backlot set as it appears in Cops.

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The Rector Cafe nightclub from Three Ages.

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A full view of the 5-arch set and neighboring central arch set (*) appearing with Buster’s cattle in Go West.

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This 1922 photo shows ongoing school construction at top, the Keaton Studio in the foreground, and the Metro Studio at right. The arrow marks the point of view of the 1928 photo above towards the Metro backlot. HollywoodPhotographs.com

I’ve always been fascinated imagining what it would have been like to wander around Buster Keaton’s studio. I’ve written several posts analyzing vintage aerial photos of the studio, taken in 1921 and 1922, available from HollywoodPhotographs.com. But as shown here, you’ll never know where other images of the studio might pop up, even over an old school fence.

Filed under: Buster Keaton, Cops, Keaton Studio Tagged: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Cops, Keaton Locations, Keaton Studio, Silent Comedians, Silent Comedies, Silent Movie Locations, then and now

Chaplin – Inside “The Kid” Maternity Hospital

[image error]In a prior post, How Charlie Chaplin Filmed The Kid, I explain that the former Occidental College Hall of Letters building, once visited by Presidents Taft and Teddy Roosevelt, portrays the Dickensian maternity hospital where single mother [image error]Edna Purviance is cast into the cold, cruel world. Astonishingly this building, trimmed of its upper floor and roof, is still standing, now a modest apartment block in Highland Park. (The original campus building was abandoned when the new, larger Occidental campus opened in nearby Eagle Rock in 1914).

Chaplin scholar Brad Alexander (who is researching the connections between Chaplin and Albert Einstein) visited the site recently, and sent me some remarkable photos from both outside and inside the building. (Having discovered this spot using the Internet, and living in the Bay Area, I have yet to visit the site in person).

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Click to enlarge- the east entrance appearing in the film. Brad Alexander.

[image error]Now that The Kid is released on Blu-ray, I continue to be amazed at the striking details apparent in the film. If you click the above then and now image, you can clearly see the interior steps leading down from the main hallway that Edna strode as she departed the building. The stairs are still there, and now you can see them in the movie too. At the left you can see that the upper grill details that once stood above the gate still remain.

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Click to enlarge – three sets of interior doors along the hallway can be seen. Brad reports that the nurse was portrayed by Chaplin’s personal secretary Nellie Bly Baker.

Thanks to Brad’s visit, and the Blu-ray detail, I also now understand the interior layout of the hall. There were three sets of doors. First, an interior pair of glass entrance doors stood just up the stairs from the gate, the reflecting left glass door is closed (see vertical line above). Next, a pair of doors further into the building closed off a section of the hallway (see horizontal line above). All the way down the hall, just above the CHARITY sign, you can see part of the glass entrance doors on the other side of the building. Note that the elegant marble balustrade (see box above) is no longer present.

[image error]This view (left) matches Edna’s view as she walked down the stairs to the entrance gate. The glass doors at the top of these stairs are no longer in place. Notice that the carved marble balustrade that once stood to the left has been replaced with metal railings. [image error]

From the same spot, where the glass entrance doors once stood, this view (below, right) looks in the other direction, west from the top of the stairs, towards the [image error]deep interior doorway that can close off a section of the hallway. This doorway is highlighted with the blue horizontal line in the detailed view of Edna above.

This view (below left), looks east, from inside the other entrance of the building, down the length of the hallway towards Edna’s exit at the far end of the hall.

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Matching views of the east side of the building.

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The south side of the building, where Presidents Taft and Roosevelt once spoke (see below).

I wonder if the people living here have any idea that two Presidents of the United States, and Charlie Chaplin, all once came here to visit. You can read all about how Charlie filmed The Kid in my Chaplin book Silent Traces. I want to thank once again Brad Alexander for sharing these photos. I would also like to thank my friend Jeffrey Castel De Oro for taking all of the photos of this building originally appearing in my book.

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[image error]At left, and below, the west entrance to the building (the side not appearing in the movie), partially blocked from view, is reached by walking between the row of bungalows at 121 N. Avenue 50, in Highland Park.

Filed under: Charlie Chaplin, The Kid Tagged: Chaplin Tour, Charlie Chaplin, Occidental College, Silent Comedians, Silent Comedies, Silent Movie Locations, The Kid, then and now

Chaplin, The Kid, and Occidental College

[image error]In a prior post, How Charlie Chaplin Filmed The Kid, I explain that the former Occidental College Hall of Letters Building, once visited by Presidents Taft and Teddy Roosevelt, portrays the Dickensian maternity hospital where single mother [image error]Edna Purviance is cast into the cold, cruel world. Astonishingly, this building, trimmed of its upper floors, is still standing, now a modest apartment block in Eagle Rock.

Chaplin scholar Brad Alexander (who is researching the connections between Chaplin and Albert Einstein), recently visited the site, and sent me some remarkable photos from both inside and outside the building. (Although I discovered this spot using the Internet, since I live in the Bay Area I have yet to visit the site in person).

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Click to enlarge- the east entrance appearing in the film. Brad Alexander.

[image error]Now that The Kid is released on Blu-ray, I continue to be amazed at the striking details apparent in the film. If you click the above then and now image, you can clearly see the interior steps leading down from the main hallway that Edna strode as she departed the building. The stairs are still there, and now you can see them in the movie too. At the left you can see that the upper grill details that once stood above the gate still remain.

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Click to enlarge – three sets of interior doors along the hallway can be seen. Brad reports that the nurse was portrayed by Chaplin’s personal secretary Nellie Bly Baker.

Thanks to Brad’s visit, and the Blu-ray detail, I also now understand the interior layout of the hall. There were three sets of doors. First, an interior pair of glass entrance doors stood just up the stairs from the gate, the reflecting left glass door is closed (see vertical line above). Next, a pair of doors further into the building closed off a section of the hallway (see horizontal line above). All the way down the hall, just above the CHARITY sign, you can see part of the glass entrance doors on the other side of the building. Note that the elegant marble balustrade (see box above) is no longer present.

[image error]This view (left) matches Edna’s view as she walked down the stairs to the entrance gate. The glass doors at the top of these stairs are no longer in place. Notice that the carved marble balustrade that once stood to the left has been replaced with metal railings. [image error]

From the same spot, where the glass entrance doors once stood, this view (below, right) looks in the other direction, west from the top of the stairs, towards the [image error]deep interior doorway that can close off a section of the hallway. This doorway is highlighted with the blue horizontal line in the detailed view of Edna above.

This view (below left), looks east, from inside the other entrance of the building, down the length of the hallway towards Edna’s exit at the far end of the hall.

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Matching views of the east side of the building.

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The south side of the building, where Presidents Taft and Roosevelt once spoke (see below).

I wonder if the people living here have any idea that two Presidents of the United States, and Charlie Chaplin, all once came here to visit. You can read all about how Charlie filmed The Kid in my Chaplin book Silent Traces. I want to thank once again Brad Alexander for sharing these photos. I would also like to thank my friend Jeffrey Castel De Oro for taking all of the photos of this building originally appearing in my book.

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[image error]At left, and below, the west entrance to the building (the side not appearing in the movie), partially blocked from view, is reached by walking between the row of bungalows at 121 N. Avenue 50, in Eagle Rock.

Filed under: Charlie Chaplin, The Kid Tagged: Chaplin Tour, Charlie Chaplin, Occidental College, Silent Comedians, Silent Comedies, Silent Movie Locations, The Kid, then and now

Where Roscoe Arbuckle Filmed His Brooklyn Vitaphone Shorts

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Looking south, the recently demolished Vitaphone Studios (yellow outline) in relation to many of Roscoe’s filming sites. The landmark Vitagraph smokestack, for the moment still standing, appears at bottom due right of the “North” marker. (C) 2017 Google.

Starting at page 2 below, this multi-page post reveals more than two dozen Brooklyn movie locations filmed over 85 years ago. Click each image for a larger view.

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Arbuckle filming Hey Pop at 3rd Ave and 80th in Bay Ridge – see page 7 below.

The recently demolished Vitagraph (Vitaphone) Studio, once standing at E 14th between Chestnut and Locust in the Midwood community of Brooklyn, holds a giant place in cinema history. One of the earliest and most prolific studios, it was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1925, where it became instrumental in the widespread production of talking pictures.

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The Chestnut Ave side of the studio – Brooklyn Public Library

The Vitaphone process, the first commercially viable sound film technology, involved recording audio tracks on 16 inch shellac discs that played synchronously with moving images. The smash Vitaphone presentation of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer in 1927 spelled the eventual doom for silent pictures. Capitalizing on local talent, the Brooklyn Vitaphone studio produced hundreds of short ‘sound’ films capturing unusual vaudeville acts, and Broadway singing stars and comedians.

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Now demolished – Ron Hutchinson

Vitaphone’s brief triumph ended quickly once optical soundtrack technology became standard. Suddenly obsolete, the surviving Vitaphone audio discs were often misplaced or separated from their films. In 1991 a group of record collectors and film archivists led by Ron Hutchinson founded The Vitaphone Project, dedicated to reuniting orphan Vitaphone discs with their mute films, and restoring them on new 35mm sound-on-film prints for modern projection. Nearly 150 short films and many features have since been restored; two recent triumphs include flapper star Colleen Moore’s Synthetic Sin (1929) and Why Be Good? (1929), both once thought to be lost.

[image error]These charming, quirky, and sometimes downright strange Vitaphone entertainment shorts have become crowd favorites at classic film festivals. When Ron hosted a full evening of Vitaphone shorts recently on TCM, it reminded me to pull out my Vitaphone Comedy Collection: Volume One DVD, which captivated me with the dozens of street scenes depicted on film. Though the studio building itself is now demolished, the films it once produced continue to preserve priceless moments of everyday Brooklyn life from more than 85 years ago. The two films analyzed in this post, Hey Pop (1932) and Buzzin’ Around (1933), were both starring vehicles for pioneering film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

[image error]Arbuckle began his long career in 1913, with Mabel Normand and Charlie Chaplin among his early co-stars. By 1917 Arbuckle led a series of comedy shorts co-starring  Al St. John (his nephew) and Roscoe’s protégé Buster Keaton. When Arbuckle began making a series of feature comedies for Paramount in 1920, earning him millions, Buster took over his small production company, launching Keaton’s solo career.

[image error]Arbuckle is remembered mostly today for his involvement with the death of actress Virginia Rappe following a booze-filled Labor Day weekend party he hosted at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in 1921. Charged with manslaughter, after two mistrials Arbuckle was fully acquitted, receiving a rare public apology from the jury for his ordeal. Despite this, the scandal became a lightning rod for pious America’s backlash against “loose” Hollywood morals, ending his onscreen career. With the help of Buster and others, Roscoe spent the next decade writing and directing, often under the pseudonym “William Goodrich,” while also touring in live shows.

[image error]Roscoe never lost his public appeal. By 1932 Warner Bros. correctly decided audiences would welcome his return to the screen, signing Arbuckle to shoot six two-reel comedies at the Vitaphone Studio in Brooklyn, two of which are studied here. In a tragic confluence of events, on June 29, 1933, his first-year wedding anniversary with actress Addie McPhail, and the day after completing the sixth short, Roscoe signed a long-term contract with Warners sealing his comeback, only to die that evening of a heart attack in his sleep. He was 46.

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(C) 2017 Google.

Page 2 covers (1), (2), (3), (4), and (12) above. Page 3 covers (5), (6), (7), and (8), Page 4 covers (9), (10), (11), and (15). Page 5 covers (13), (14), (16), (17), (18), and (19). Page 6 covers Ave M between E 18th and E 19th. Page 7 covers Bay Ridge and Shemp Howard filming at (8) and (9).

Filed under: Brooklyn Tagged: Al St. John, Avenue M, Brooklyn, Brooklyn movie locations, Buzzin' Around, E 14th, E 15th, Fatty Arbuckle, Hey Pop, Jack Haley, Midwood, Roscoe Arbuckle, Salt Water Daffy, Shemp Howard, Silent Comedians, Silent Movie Locations, then and now, Vitagraph Studio, Vitaphone, Vitaphone Studio

Marc Wanamaker and Bruce Torrence – Hollywood’s Photo History Heroes

Marc Wanamaker of Bison Archives, and Bruce Torrence of HollywoodPhotographs.com, both accomplished authors, photo archivists, and historians, are two behind the scenes giants of Hollywood history. Wanamaker, a foremost authority on all things Hollywood, especially its movie studios, has supplied material for hundreds of books, and has appeared onscreen in numerous documentaries. Marc has written more than a dozen books on topics including Paramount Studios, the Culver City Studios, Beverly Hills, Warner Bros., and Hollywood itself (see more Amazon links HERE).

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Marc Wanamaker (left) – Bruce Torrence (right)

Torrence has Hollywood in his DNA. His grandfather, noted developer C.E. Toberman, built dozens of Hollywood subdivisions and commercial buildings, including the Chinese Theater, while his other grandfather, towering actor Ernest Torrence, was an early screen star, playing roles such as Captain Hook in Peter Pan (1924) and Buster Keaton’s father in Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). Bruce’s 1979 groundbreaking account “Hollywood: the First 100 Years” was an instant classic, and his recent “The Hollywood Canteen” documents Hollywood’s morale boosting efforts during WWII.

Aside from their informative books, Marc and Bruce both manage incredible photo archives that allow us priceless views of Hollywood’s past, and have generously assisted countless other authors and historians. I am personally indebted to Marc and Bruce who have been remarkably kind and supportive to me over the years. This post revisits a few fun location discoveries that would have been impossible to solve without access to their extraordinary photos.

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The newly discovered stunt scene from Keaton’s My Wife’s Relations was filmed on this set at Buster’s studio. Buster later used the set for a scene with some police in Day Dreams (inset). Read the full post HERE. HollywoodPhotographs.com.

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Using several of Marc’s photos I was able to prove that a few trees appearing in the battle scenes from The Birth of a Nation (1915) are still standing at Forest Lawn. They appeared with the Three Stooges too. Read the full post HERE. Marc Wanamaker – Bison Archives.

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Click to enlarge. In this post I examine the major Hollywood landmarks appearing in a single 1926 photo. From left to right: the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio (red oval), the Chaplin Studio (yellow oval), the Bernheimer Estate and future Magic Castle (teal oval), the Hollywood Hotel (red box), the Harold Lloyd (Hollywood Metropolitan) Studios (yellow box), the Keaton Studio (teal box), the block of Cahuenga south of Hollywood Boulevard where Keaton and Lloyd frequently filmed (orange box), and the intersection of Hollywood and Vine (purple oval). HollywoodPhotographs.com.

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This ‘rural’ barn scene closing the new version of Buster Keaton’s The Blacksmith stood near Melrose and La Brea, in this view looking SW from Harold Lloyd’s Hollywood Studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. You can read several posts about the ‘new’ The Blacksmith HERE. Marc Wanamaker – Bison Archives.

My favorite discovery, made possible only by examining many photos each from both Marc’s and Bruce’s archives, is that Charlie Chaplin filmed The Kid, Buster Keaton filmed Cops, and Harold Lloyd filmed Safety Last! at the same small Hollywood alley you can still visit today.

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Click to enlarge – looking NE at the alley running from Cahuenga (left) to Cosmo (right). You can read the full post HERE and HERE. HollywoodPhotographs.com.

I would like to thank Marc and Bruce for all they have done to preserve, document, and share Hollywood’s rich history.

Bison Archives  –   HollywoodPhotographs.com

Filed under: Uncategorized

Buster Keaton, Seven Chances, and Warren Beatty?

[image error]Warren Beatty’s audacious and scarily prescient political satire Bulworth (1998) depicts Beatty as a California Senator seeking reelection who’s become so disillusioned with the ineffectiveness of politics that he hires a hit man to finish him off. Suddenly liberated to speak his mind, Bulworth’s unfiltered remarks spark a media storm and groundswell of popular support (sound familiar?)

Early on Bulworth chastises a black congregation to wake up, confessing that neither party serves their community because politicians only respond to well-funded lobbyists and huge donations. Bulworth’s terrified campaign manager ends the debacle by pulling the fire alarm and hustling Bulworth out of the church.

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Senator Bulworth arrives at the Greater Page Temple – 2610 S. La Salle Avenue

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The church presented in the film is the same church Buster Keaton used seven decades earlier for his pre-marital comedy Seven Chances (1925). In that film Keaton must marry by 7:00 p.m. in order to inherit a fortune, and after bungling a proposal to his long-time girlfriend, resorts to placing a front page notice in the newspaper, prompting hundreds of would-be brides to appear at the church. Built in 1906, the former West Adams Methodist Church, now the Greater Page Temple, stands proudly as ever at 2610 La Salle Avenue.

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USC Digital Library – CHS-41294

[image error]While Bulworth staged a lengthy sequence inside the beautiful church, Buster filmed his church interiors on a roofless set draped overhead with muslin cloth to diffuse the bright sunlight.

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Buster in a specially built church interior set – it had no roof.

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The late Mrs. Eleanor Keaton on the steps of the Seven Chances church. She joked that whereas hundreds before her had failed, she was the one woman to actually marry Buster.

I write extensively about the locations appearing in Seven Chances in my book Silent Echoes, and prepared a visual essay about it as a bonus feature to the Kino-Lorber Blu-ray release of the film. This post shows other locations, and this post shows how Buster filmed a scene close to his studio.

Filed under: Buster Keaton, Seven Chances Tagged: Bulworth, Buster Keaton, Keaton Locations, Silent Comedians, Silent Movie Locations, Silent Movies, then and now, Warren Beatty

Buster Keaton, The General, and Animal House?

As shown in this previous post describing how Buster Keaton filmed The General in Cottage Grove, Oregon, Buster and crew stayed at the Bartell Hotel during the production, staged the summer of 1926. The hotel stands just a block or two west from where most the filming took place.

But the hotel, later re-named the Cottage Grove Hotel, has another claim to classic comedy fame. The hotel appears during the homecoming parade finale to the 1978 comedy Animal House. When “Stork” (played by the film’s co-screenwriter Douglas Kenney) diverts the marching band into a dead-end alley before the Delta House wrecks havoc on the parade, you can clearly see the Cottage Grove Hotel awning in the background.

Click to enlarge – looking east down Main Street towards the Cottage Grove Hotel.

Click to enlarge – Stork begins to divert the band.

Both The General and Animal House have been inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as works of enduring importance to American culture; Buster in 1989, and The National Lampoon comedy in 2001.

This brief video hosted by A.M.P.A.S. from a talk I gave in 2011 further explains how Buster filmed The General in Cottage Grove.  You can read all about filming The General in my Keaton film locations book Silent Echoes.

Filed under: Buster Keaton, The General Tagged: Animal House, Buster Keaton, Cottage Grove, Silent Comedians, Silent Comedies, Silent Movie Locations, Silent Movies, The General, then and now