Stan Laurel and W.C. Fields Crossed Paths Near the Keaton and Metro Studios
Expanding on the previous post, Stan Laurel also crossed paths with W.C. Fields, at the Metro Studios south of Buster Keaton’s studio, with the same landmark storage building still standing appearing at back. The scenes further below appear in Stan’s 1925 film Twins, made with producer Joe Rock after Stan was dropped by the Hal Roach Studio as a solo performer.
The same storage building appears in The Balloonatic, Twins, and If I Had A Million
Stan’s lesser known film Twins was kindly brought to my attention by Dave Heath, who runs the vast and wonderfully encyclopedic Hal Roach Studio films blog Another Nice Mess. Comedy mayhem ensues when husband Stan leaves town on business the same time his identical twin brother bachelor Stan arrives unannounced, confounding husband Stan’s unaware wife when bachelor Stan begins dating her best friend.
Stan filmed a scene bumping into an actor portraying his twin, knocking each other down, beside a former Metro Studios property storage building on the NW corner of Cahuenga and Willoughby a block south of Keaton’s studio.
Click to enlarge – the same Metro Studio corner, looking to the NW at left, and to the SE at right, with Buster’s studio in the foreground for reference. HollywoodPhotographs.com
Click to enlarge – a closer view of the same corner of Cahuenga at Willoughby.
Click to enlarge – again, closer views of Cahuenga and Willoughby, now both looking to the NW. HollywoodPhotographs.com
Click to enlarge – here one of the angry women chases husband Stan or bachelor Stan (I forget which) up Cahuenga from Willoughby past the property storage buildings and scene docks on the Metro Studio lot. Notice also that some type of underground pipe or trench is being installed along Cahuenga.
Remarkably, Stan and W.C. Fields filmed at the same NW corner of Cahuenga and Willoughby, creating a continuous panoramic view of its corner cement curb. The Metro building appearing with Stan in 1925 was completely demolished when Bill filmed a scene from If I Had A Million here in 1932, just seven years later. You can read many more details and locations about Bill’s film in the prior post HERE.
A closing shot, the same six-story storage facility, built in 1922, still standing at 6372 Santa Monica Blvd. on the SE corner of Cahuenga, appears two blocks up the street behind Stan and W.C. As I explain in the prior post, the building was expanded around 1925, now twice as large, but obviously the work was completed after Stan had filmed Twins.
Please check out my YouTube channel, including new visual discoveries showing how Buster Keaton made The General. I wrote its musical score, the Paddlewheel Rag, back in 1975, and employed the Musescore app to record it for the video.
Google Maps view of Willoughby at Cahuenga today.
