Buster Keaton’s Cops and Laurel & Hardy 1928 Year Two
Buster Keaton’s masterpiece Cops (1922) is one of his seven films inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry as a work of “enduring importance to American culture.” Cops is his only independently produced film with no interior scenes. Every scene was filmed outdoors at true locations, or on the backlots of Buster’s small studio, and the Goldwyn, Metro, and Brunton (United) Studios. The location for every scene has been identified.
As highlighted in this new, stand-alone segment of my blog (see banner at top and link below), each scene is time-referenced in sequential order. This lengthy timeline is divided into 9 pages with links at the bottom of each page. Most locations and even streets such as Arcadia and New High no longer exist, except in vintage photos, maps, and aerial views. Los Angeles and Hollywood looked different a century ago, now lost to history, but we can use Cops as a window into the past. Buster filmed Cops everywhere, from Culver City to Pasadena, from Hollywood to USC to south of downtown LA. Buster’s effort, planning, and production values are beyond amazing. From A to Z, from beginning to end, you can now travel with Buster every step of the way during his journey filming Cops.
https://silentlocations.com/cops/
I was honored to prepare a Laurel & Hardy On Location Year Two bonus program for the wonderful Flicker Alley Blu-ray release of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s 1928 silent films. The program documents many previously unreported locations from such films as The Finishing Touch, Should Married Men Go Home?, and Two Tars.
Aside from sharing new discoveries, this Year Two program is especially gratifying because recent health issues make it difficult for me to speak. But using audio narration files from prior bonus programs, I created an AI clone of my voice (!), which narrates the program for me. It is my voice, it sounds like me even to me. But I did not speak a single word, the clone narrates the entire show.
Among the Year Two newly reported locations, the video documents the traffic jam road scenes along Centinella appearing in Two Tars, also highlighted in this post HERE.
Flicker Alley has a Blu-ray restoration of the Laurel & Hardy 1927 silent films, for which I created a Year One bonus program, also available on my YouTube channel.
Google Maps overview of the Cops filming locations.
