The Artist – Locations, Chaplin, and Pickford (repost)

The movie marquee appearing in The Artist stands on the Warner Bros. backlot.

Set in Hollywood during 1927 to 1932, The Artist depicts the romance between a fading silent film star and a rising “talkie” ingénue.  The Artist has received glowing reviews and numerous awards, and is noteworthy for being presented in black & white, and without spoken dialog.  What’s more, the lead actors, the writer/director, and most of the crew are all French, who traveled to Los Angeles to film the movie at authentic Hollywood studios and locations.

While the Los Angeles Times beat me with news of several locales appearing in the film, I’ve gleaned a few locations the Times did not cover, including a connection to Charlie Chaplin, below.

The Artist - vintage cars race past the NE corner of S. Hudson Avenue and W. 2nd Street. (c) 2011 Google

The ingénue character Peppy Miller, played by Bérénice Bejo, skyrockets to wealth and fame, and soon sets up house in a fabulous mansion, located at 56 Fremont Place.  The palatial home was occupied for a time in 1918-1919 by America’s Sweetheart, silent film superstar Mary Pickford.  Pickford was one of the most savvy business-persons in Hollywood, co-founding United Artists in 1919 with her future husband Douglas Fairbanks, and fellow partners Charlie Chaplin and director D. W. Griffith.

56 Fremont Place was home to Mary Pickford from August 1918 to August 1919. It appears in the background from this scene (above left) appearing in Charlie Chaplin's The Kid, and as the home of Peppy Miller in The Artist (above right). The box marks the same corner of the house in each image.

Charlie Chaplin no doubt visited Mary at her home at 56 Fremont Place in 1919, and was thus already familiar with the neighborhood when he used it to stage an important early scene from his 1921 masterpiece The Kid, named one of the 2011 entries into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.   During this scene, an unwed mother played by Edna Purviance abandons her infant son in the backseat of a limousine parked in front of 55 Fremont Place, the home directly across the street from Mary’s home.  Thieves steal the car before Edna can return to reclaim her child.  Upon discovering the baby, the thieves leave him in the gutter, where Charlie finds him, and raises the kid as his own.

55 Fremont Place, as it appears in Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. This beautiful home was recently owned by prize-fighting legend Muhammad Ali, and stands directly across the street from 56 Fremont Place, the former Mary Pickford home appearing in The Artist.

Edna Purviance in The Kid at 55 Fremont Place.

George Valentin's mansion at 104 Fremont Place. In 1927 the trees in front of the home would have been much smaller.

French actor Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin, the male lead in The Artist, a charming, swash-buckling movie star character fashioned after Douglas Fairbanks.  Actual footage of Fairbanks performing stunts from his 1920 landmark film The Mark of Zorro appears in The Artist during a montage of scenes supposedly played by George.  The mansion where George lives is located at 104 Fremont Place (above, and marked in the photo below), behind the home Chaplin used when filming The Kid.

George Valentin's home in The Artist was located at 104 Fremont Place (left box), behind the home Chaplin used in The Kid (oval), itself across the street from the Mary Pickford - Peppy Miller home (right box) beyond the bottom edge of this photo. California Historical Society, Title Insurance and Trust Photo Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Southern California.

One of the greatest challenges when attempting to recreate vintage Los Angeles today is the mature landscaping.  Back in the 1920s all of the subdivisions were new, and most homes had no trees to block the view.   This aerial view below shows how Fremont Place would more likely have looked during the era depicted in The Artist.

Click to enlarge. The oval marks the section of Fremont Place where The Kid and The Artist were filmed. 104 Fremont Place, appearing as George's home, was not yet built at the time this photo was taken. It appears as the vacant lot within the left edge of the oval. The Kid mansion stands near the center of the oval, while the Mary Pickford - Peppy Miller home is near the lower right edge of the oval. The long diagonal line just above the oval is Wilshire Boulevard, the next major street several blocks above Wilshire is 3rd Street. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library.

(c) 2011 Microsoft Corporation, Pictometry Bird's Eye (c) 2010 Pictometry International Corp.

There is also a scene in the movie where Uggie the dog summons a policeman on the street for help.  The corner street sign reading “OAKWOOD AVE, 6100 W” appears in the shot, placing the scene at the corner of N. June Street and Oakwood, below.

Uggie the dog summons a cop on this street corner. (c) 2011 Google.

Check out the connections between The Artist and Buster Keaton on Part 2, located here.

Check out Part 3 of this series for connections to Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, and Part 4 for connections to the Bradbury Building and Bradbury Mansion, and Part 5 for connections to Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights.

For more photos and location information about Chaplin filming The Kid visit this PowerPoint presentation on my blog, and my book Silent Traces.  And as I mentioned, the LA Times story has a number of locations worth exploring.   Thanks also to Carol Kiefer, the Art Department Coordinator who worked on The Artist, for assistance with this post.  She reports that the Bugatti driving scene was filmed at the Big Sky Movie Ranch in Simi Valley (which has a landing airstrip), the torture laboratory and cells were filmed at the Eagle Rock Substation, Zimmer’s office, the secretary’s office, the store room, and the auction house were all filmed at the Wilshire Ebell Theater, and that the hospital was the American Film Institute building.   The Tears of Love theater interior was the Los Angeles Theater at 630 S. Broadway.

PS – The Wilshire Ebell Theater, a 743 Lucerne Boulevard, is also just steps away from the Mary Pickford home on Fremont Place.

The Artist (C) La Petite Reine, The Weinstein Company.  All images from Chaplin films made from 1918 onwards, copyright © Roy Export Company Establishment. CHARLES CHAPLIN, CHAPLIN, and the LITTLE TRAMP, photographs from and the names of Mr. Chaplin’s films are trademarks and/or service marks of Bubbles Incorporated SA and/or Roy Export Company Establishment. Used with permission.

View Larger Map

Mr. Keaton’s Neighborhood

Buster Keaton would travel hundreds of miles to find just the right setting for a shot.  But he was also practical, and filmed dozens of exterior scenes at or adjacent to his small studio.  I am not aware of any documentary or newsreel footage taken of the Keaton Studio, and thus, the glimpses of Keaton’s home turf appearing in the background of his films are likely the only movie records we have.  (I write more about this in the About Silent Locations section on my blog, and in my first post, while my book Silent Echoes covers these discoveries in great detail.)  Since acquiring other aerial views of the Keaton Studio, and the new Keaton Blu-ray releases, I have made several more discoveries about filming at the Keaton Studio, and describe a few of them here.

Click to enlarge. Two scenes from Day Dreams filmed on the Keaton Studio backlot, adjacent to the oval, below. At the right, Buster waits for a ladder holding some cops to fall into a delivery chute.

Looking SE at the former Keaton Studio, bounded, clockwise by Eleanor (arrow), Lillian Way, Romaine, and Cahuenga. A snow bank set from Sherlock Jr. appears within the red oval, next to where the above scenes from Day Dreams were filmed. The arrow and yellow box mark another setting from Sherlock Jr. discussed below. The main shooting stage was enclosed in 1923. Bruce Torrence Hollywood Historical Collection.

Buster dives into a snow bank in Sherlock Jr. It was actually a set built at his small studio. I am puzzled why they built the snow bank so high up in the air. Perhaps they intended to have clear sky, as opposed to a studio fence, in the background. But during the scene it looks as if a painted sky wall stands behind Buster.

Day Dreams. This scene was cropped to highlight the action, AND to cover up how narrow the set was.

During Keaton’s short film Day Dreams (1922), Buster lures the police chasing him up a fire escape, and returns to earth on the escape ladder’s counter-balance weight.  Keaton hitches the weight to a departing delivery truck, which pulls the ladder free from the wall, leaving the police suspended in air, until the wire snaps, and they drop into the sidewalk delivery chute Buster has opened at their feet.  The grocery set appearing behind the truck, and the building wall appearing during the scene, were built at the Keaton Studio, as shown above.  On the Blu-ray you can see the outline of three window openings on the set that were covered over during the filming, perhaps so the police would stand out more against the blank wall.

During his feature comedy Sherlock Jr. (1924), Buster plays a movie projectionist who dreams himself into the movie he is projecting.  Upon entering the movie “world,” Buster finds himself stationary as the movie background edits behind him.  Thus, Buster first finds himself in a garden, then on a city street, then in a jungle, and so forth.  Stranded on a coastal rock, Buster dives into the surf, only to land instead in a snow bank built at the studio (shown above).  Buster used real outdoor exteriors for other settings during this sequence, but for some reason decided it was preferable to use fake snow.

Click to enlarge. The sign for the Coffee Cup Cafe (yellow box), appearing in Keaton's short comedy The Blacksmith (left), appears behind Buster during this scene from Sherlock Jr. (right). The arrow and yellow boxes correspond with the aerial photo above, and below.

The arrow marks Buster's path above - walking away from the Coffee Cup Cafe. The fence alongside Buster in the above right frame was not yet built at the time this photo was taken. Bruce Torrence Hollywood Historical Collection.

Later in Sherlock Jr. Buster’s dream character becomes a master detective held captive by villains.  Buster escapes by diving through an open window, across which his assistant has stretched out a beggar-woman costume.   Buster dives into the dress, and out the window, in one continuous movement.  Moments later (see above), a villain confronts Buster while in disguise on a sidewalk directly across the street from the Keaton Studio barn.

Click to enlarge. The Blacksmith and the Coffee Cup Cafe, home to Klean Kwik Kooking.

The studio barn, formerly at the corner of Eleanor and Cahuenga, appears prominently during Keaton’s 1922 short film The Blacksmith (see left).  As a customer backs his gleaming white car into the barn for repairs, we can see the barber pole for Sol Weisman’s barbershop, at 1031 Cahuenga, standing in the background.  Next door is the Coffee Cup Cafe, home of Klean Kwik Kooking, serving STEAKS CHOPS and OYSTERS.  A portion of this OYSTERS sign (yellow box above) appears behind Buster after his escape in Sherlock Jr.   It’s fun to imagine – did Keaton and crew eat at the Coffee Cup regularly?  Did any one visit Sol for a haircut?  Also, the barber and cafe buildings were built brand new in 1922, a block from the large Metro Studios.  They must have counted on lots of business from Metro, and been impacted when Metro merged into M-G-M, and moved to Culver City a few years later.  I can find no record of the cafe other than its appearance in these films, and wonder how long it survived.  A full view of the studio appears below.

This full view of the Keaton Studio shows the snow bank set (oval) discussed above, relative to the Coffee Cup Cafe (yellow box). Bruce Torrence Hollywood Historical Collection.

Charlie Chaplin used exterior views of his studio to film scenes (or deleted scenes) from Shoulder Arms, A Day’s Pleasure, The Kid, and A Woman of Paris, and the Bradbury Mansion, and its environs appear in several early Harold Lloyd shorts.  But far more so than Chaplin or Lloyd, Keaton filmed over 40 scenes near and around his studio.  I will be posting more of these new discoveries at a later date.

Day Dreams, Sherlock Jr., and The Blacksmith licensed by Douris UK, Ltd.

A view today of the Keaton Studio site.  The commemorative sidewalk plaque in the foreground should be across the street.

View Larger Map

New York, Harold Lloyd, and Adam Sandler?!

After matching The Artist (2011) and Harold Lloyd in a prior post, how about pairing Harold and Adam Sandler for an encore?  I haven’t seen many of Sandler’s films, but when the Blockbuster kiosk offered me a free rental, I figured I’d give Big Daddy a try.  Once I realized Big Daddy was shot on location in New York, it didn’t take long to discover Sandler had crossed paths with Lloyd’s 1928 production of Speedy.   In fact, Lloyd filmed so filmed extensively in Manhattan during the summer of 1927 that there are likely common locations between Speedy and nearly every New York-based film succeeding it.

Click to enlarge. The Christopher Street Sheridan Square subway entrance in Manhattan. The box in each image marks the same cigar store, as it appeared in 1927 during the filming of Speedy, and as it appeared in 1999 in Big Daddy. The store still stands there today. The white pillars above the cigar store in the color image are part of the steeple to St. John's Lutheran Church, built in 1821.

click to enlarge. Speedy then and now

During the climatic race home in Speedy, Harold charges a horse-drawn trolley across Manhattan, from Grove Street and 4th Street, past the Christopher Street Sheridan Square subway entrance, towards 7th Avenue.   I write about this in greater detail in a prior post.  Big Daddy used the same setting, above, for a scene where Sandler’s character impresses his friends by demonstrating that the young foster child in his care can dangle a loogie nearly all the way to the ground before sucking it back up into his mouth.

The oval marks the same statuary in front of the U.S. Customs House.

Harold continues his race home in Speedy along the south end of Bowling Green Park, beside the former U.S. Customs House, now the home of the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian.   In Big Daddy, Sandler uses a phone booth at Bowling Green to call his father for advice.   The four allegorical sculptural groups in front of the museum, representing the Four Continents; Asia, America, Europe, and Africa, were created by artist Daniel Chester French between 1903-1907.

The Washington Arch Memorial at Washington Square Park.

Above, Harold races through the archway at Washington Square Park.  The Washington Memorial Arch was fashioned after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris by Gilded-Age architect Stanford White, and was dedicated in 1895.  Vehicular traffic along 5th Avenue was permitted through the arch, and across the park, until the 1960s.  Sandler used the park to film a scene where he allows the foster child in his care to change his name from Julian to Frankenstein.

You can read all about Harold Lloyd filming Speedy in Manhattan, and Coney Island, and Brooklyn (and in downtown Los Angeles) in my book Silent Visions.  The section on Speedy is nearly 100 pages long, and is filled with wonderful vintage photos of New York.

My blog also has several other Lloyd-Manhattan posts, including a tour of Brooklyn locations in Speedy, an overview of Speedy Manhattan locations, including three annotated Google maps, a post showing where Lloyd and Buster Keaton crossed paths in New York, and posts about Babe Ruth AND Lou Gehrig’s cameo appearances in Speedy.

For more New York locations appearing in Big Daddy, check out these websites:  http://onthesetofnewyork.com/bigdaddy.html  and http://www.themoviemap.com/film-locations/bb/big-daddy-1999/

HAROLD LLOYD images and the names of Mr. Lloyd’s films are all trademarks and/or service marks of Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc. Images and movie frame images reproduced courtesy of The Harold Lloyd Trust and Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc.  Big Daddy (C) 1999 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.

The Artist Locations Part 5 – Chaplin’s City Lights

Click to enlarge. From The Artist, character George Valentin's Tears of Love on the Los Angeles Theater screen, at left. Color image Floyd B. Bariscale http://www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/3394648314/ca

In a tribute to the theater's namesake, the Great Seal of the City of Los Angeles hangs above the proscenium arch - circa 1931. California State Library Mott-Merge Collection

The Los Angeles Theater, located at 615 S. Broadway in the Los Angeles Theater District, has a remarkable connection to two of the most audacious hit movies in Hollywood history, Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931), and Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist (2011).  Filmed 80 years apart, the two movies share a common conceit  – both, against all odds, are presented without spoken dialog.  Just as newspaper accounts today are abuzz with how bold it is for The Artist to be presented in the digital era without spoken dialog, contemporary newspapers stories marveled at Chaplin’s endeavors to continue with the silent format.  The January 29, 1931 Los Angeles Times description of City Lights “as the first non-dialogue film of importance to be produced since the advent of the talkies” could apply to The Artist today.

The screen of the Los Angeles Theater appears in The Artist during the premiere of character George Valentin’s self-financed production Tears of Love (see above), a silent flop that wipes out George financially.  The screen of the Los Angeles Theater had witnessed such high stakes drama once before, as it was here, in real life, that Charlie Chaplin premiered his self-financed silent production, City Lights, on January 30, 1931, the inaugural screening for the newly opened theater.   Fortunately for Chaplin, City Lights was a tremendous financial and critical success, cementing his reputation as a risk-taking artist who refused to bow to popular trends.

Click to enlarge. California State Library Mott-Merge Collection

The lobby of the Los Angeles Theater appears later in The Artist (at left), as George, now down on his luck, and Uggie the dog attend a screening of character Peppy Miller’s latest hit movie Guardian Angel.  As George leaves the screening, a woman stops him as he descends the lobby stairs.  But she is not a fan who remembers George from the past – she just wants to pet the dog hello.

Floyd B. Bariscale; http://www.flickr.com/photos/7294653@N07/3394581644/sizes/l/in/photostream/

The lavish French Baroque-styled Los Angeles Theater was Broadway’s last great movie palace.  Although built in 1930, after the Crash, it was designed to surpass the opulent neighboring palaces built during the Roaring 20′s.   (The nearby Orpheum Theater, built in 1926, also appears in The Artist, see this post).  The lobby features gilt ornamentation, bronze bannisters, mirrors, and crystal chandeliers, all centered around a sun-burst motif.  The main auditorium, which could easily seat 3000 persons, has 2200 seats, allowing much extra room between rows for the comfort of patrons.  The theater’s many innovations included individual electric cigaret-lighters on every dressing table in the ladies’ French cosmetic room, with cosmeticians and maids in attendance; a limit of six seats to a row, doing away with the annoyance caused by late arrivals; two children’s playrooms and a sound-proof nursery; a model cafe; an exhibition room for objets d’art; and a club lounge with a dancing floor; all while a periscope system of prisms relayed the projection of the identical picture shown on the screen in the main auditorium to miniature screens in the lounge rooms and in the nursery.

The exterior shots of the theater screening Peppy Miller’s Guardian Angel were filmed on the Warner Bros. backlot, across the street from the set used for the theater marquee showing George Valentin’s film A Russian Affair, and later Peppy’s hit film Beauty Spot.  I show how the Beauty Spot marquee fits on the WB backlot in my original post in this series.  By enlarging the aerial view below, you can see the row of exterior sets where the Guardian Angel sequence was staged.  Apparently the large billboard of Peppy below was added in post-production, as it does appear in the behind-the-scenes shots below.

Click to enlarge. Aerial view (c) 2011 Microsoft Corporation, Pictometry Bird's Eye (c) 2010 Pictometry International Corp.

This view below shows the Warner Bros. backlot street where all of the movie theater exteriors from The Artist were filmed.  The colored boxes help to distinguish each use.

On the Warner Bros. backlot. The yellow box marks the Guardian Angel marquee (below left), the red box marks the A Russian Affair and Beauty Spot marquee (below right), and the blue box marks the marquee used for George's doomed silent film Tears of Love.

These two marquees stand on opposite sides of the same Warner Bros. backlot street

The Artist (C) La Petite Reine, The Weinstein Company.  

All images from Chaplin films made from 1918 onwards, copyright © Roy Export Company Establishment. CHARLES CHAPLIN, CHAPLIN, and the LITTLE TRAMP, photographs from and the names of Mr. Chaplin’s films are trademarks and/or service marks of Bubbles Incorporated SA and/or Roy Export Company Establishment. Used with permission.

1931 - the world premiere of City Lights at the Los Angeles Theater. California State Library Mott-Merge Collection

The Los Angeles Theater, 615 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, host venue to the world premiere of City Lights (left).

View Larger Map

Chaplin’s Modern (Los Angeles) Times

Chaplin's Jackson Street filming site (right) lines up perfectly with the 4th Los Angeles Times Building (left)

Making A Living beside the 3rd LA Times Building

As I explain in my visual essay included in the Criterion Collection Blu-ray edition of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), Chaplin filmed scenes for his first movie Making A Living (1914) beside the third Los Angeles Times Building that once stood on the corner of 1st and Broadway.   Thanks to the clear resolution of the Criterion release, we now know Chaplin’s final silent film Modern Times (well, final film without spoken dialog) is connected to the fourth Los Angeles Times Building that opened in 1935.

During Modern Times factory worker Charlie tightens bolts on an ever-accelerating assembly line, eventually suffering a nervous breakdown.  After attempting to tighten the suggestive buttons on a matron’s dress (below left), he is carted off to a sanatorium (further below left).  These scenes were filmed on Jackson Street beside the Southern California Gas Company gas manufacturing plant, explained in further detail in my prior post about the noir connections to Modern Times, and in full detail in my book.

Click to enlarge. Matching views of the Jackson Street side of the Ducommun gas manufacturing plant, from Modern Times, left, and Harold Lloyd's 1926 feature For Heaven's Sake, at the right. The yellow box marks the same doorway in each image.

As Chaplin’s ambulance heads west down Jackson Street below left, the high resolution Blu-ray image reveals the profile of the recently opened fourth Los Angeles Times Building in the far distance.  The 1948 aerial image at the top of this post shows how the filming site lines up directly with the Times Building.

Click to enlarge. Looking west down Jackson Street straight at the side of the fourth Los Angeles Times Building in the far distance. Right image, "Dick" Whittington Photography Collection, 1924-1987, Department of Special Collections, University of Southern California

Circa 1935 - the fourth LA Times Building at 1st and Spring. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

The cornerstone for the fourth Los Angeles Times Building, at 1st and Spring, was laid on April 10, 1934.  When the Time Building opened July 1, 1935, it was the largest newspaper building in the western United States.  The building was designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, who also designed Hoover Dam, and the Athenaeum at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.  Kaufmann’s Modern design for the Times Building won a gold medal at the 1937 Paris Exposition.  The fourth Times Building has since been greatly expanded, and is still in use today.  The building is open for tours twice a month.

The fourth Times Building on Spring replaced the former third Times Building at 1st and Broadway, completed in 1912, and well-known at the time for its landmark crenelated clock tower and golden dome (see below right).  The third Times Building stood on the same site as the second Times Building, built in 1887, that was demolished by a bomb blast in 1910 during a bitter labor dispute between the paper and union organizers.  The first Times Building was constructed at Temple and New High Streets in 1881.

Click to enlarge. The third Los Angeles Times Building at 1st and Broadway. The red box marks Chaplin's position from Making A Living, his debut film. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

The second Los Angeles Times Building, on the same corner as the third, was destroyed by pro-union bombers in 1910. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

My visual essay regarding Chaplin’s Keystone films, featured as part of the Flicker Alley Chaplin at Keystone DVD set, also discusses his debut beside the former third Los Angeles Times Building.  You can see the essay here.

The original Los Angeles Times Building, circa 1881, stood on the corner of Temple and New High Streets. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

All images from Chaplin films made from 1918 onwards, copyright © Roy Export Company Establishment. CHARLES CHAPLIN, CHAPLIN, and the LITTLE TRAMP, photographs from and the names of Mr. Chaplin’s films are trademarks and/or service marks of Bubbles Incorporated SA and/or Roy Export Company Establishment. Used with permission.

Making A Living (C) 2010 by Lobster Films for the Chaplin Keystone Project; Flicker Alley, LLC.

HAROLD LLOYD images and the names of Mr. Lloyd’s films are all trademarks and/or service marks of Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc. Images and movie frame images reproduced courtesy of The Harold Lloyd Trust and Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc.

Vintage aerial (C) Google.

The Los Angeles Times Building

View Larger Map

The Artist Locations Part 4, Bradbury, Chaplin, and Lloyd

During a pivotal scene in The Artist (2011), fading silent film star George Valentin and rising ingénue Peppy Miller pass each other on a staircase at the Kinograph Studios where they work, their career trajectories mirrored by their relative positions on the stairs.  Peppy stops to look back down on George, and blows him a kiss, which George catches and puts in his pocket for safekeeping.

The Bradbury Building staircase appearing in The Artist. Color image Kansas Sebastian; http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansas_sebastian/4714604271/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Kansas Sebastian, above

Sharp-eyed movie fans will recognize the setting for this scene as the interior of the Bradbury Building, at 304 S. Broadway in Los Angeles, across the street from the historic Million Dollar Theater.  Perhaps best remembered for its appearance during the Ridley Scott 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner, the Bradbury Building has had starring roles in such noir classics as D.O.A (1950), and was featured recently in (500) Days of Summer (2009).  The Bradbury Building was built in 1893 by mining millionaire Lewis Bradbury, and remains the oldest commercial building in Los Angeles.  Its plain façade belies its internal five-story glass-roofed atrium, filled with intricate railings and bird-cage elevators.

Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, on the steps of the Bradbury Building. A vintage photo of the lobby matches the movie frame above. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

Although it doesn’t appear in his movie, Harold Lloyd filmed a concluding scene to his epic thrill comedy masterpiece, Safety Last! (below), just across the way from the Bradbury Building.

Click to enlarge. Harold Lloyd and his future wife Mildred Davis in Safety Last! at 3rd and Spring in downtown Los Angeles (arrow in modern view). Behind them stands the Million Dollar Theater built in 1917 by Sid Grauman, who would later build his famous Egyptian (1922) and Chinese (1927) theaters in Hollywood. The theater's distinctive dome tower (box) has been a downtown landmark for 95 years. The five-story Bradbury Building (oval) lies behind them out of view. Notice the Bradbury's large glass atrium roof. (c) 2012 Microsoft Corporation, Pictometry Bird's Eye (c) 2010 Pictometry International Corp.

Time on his hands

Harold Lloyd filmed a brief scene with Mildred Davis, his future wife, for the conclusion to Safety Last! (1923) atop the Washington Building at 3rd and Spring, across from the Bradbury Building at 3rd and Broadway.  Lloyd staged his climb up a thirteen story building in Safety Last! by constructing sets atop three increasingly taller buildings.  As addressed in my prior post, the famous scene where Harold hangs from the hands of a clock was filmed atop 908 S. Broadway, near the Orpheum Theater where the opening scenes for The Artist were filmed.   As I explain in my book Silent Visions, the sequence in Safety Last! where Harold safely reunites with his girlfriend after climbing the skyscraper was filmed atop three different buildings, including the Washington Building shown here.  The Bradbury Building stands directly behind Harold and Mildred in the shot above, but at five stories tall, the building is too short to appear in view.   

A figure of Charlie Chaplin in the Bradbury Building lobby. Kansas Sebastian; http://www.flickr.com/photos/kansas_sebastian/4715231690/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Although they could not show it during The Artist, another connection between the Bradbury Building and the silent film era is this charming statue of Charlie Chaplin that sits today on a bench within the building lobby.

Click to enlarge. This 1928 photo shows the towering Los Angeles City Hall nearing completion. The Bradbury Mansion (1887-1929) stood on the former Court Hill (oval), above the former Hill Street Tunnel. The extant Bradbury Building (1893) stands at 304 S. Broadway (box). California Historical Society, Title Insurance and Trust Photo Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Southern California

California Historical Society, Title Insurance and Trust Photo Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Southern California

Despite its frequent use as a movie location, Mr. Bradbury’s office building on Broadway was not his only connection to film history.  The elaborate Bradbury mansion, built in 1887 atop Court Hill overlooking the former County Court House (1891-1935), and at the time the city’s finest home, would later be used as one of Los Angeles’ earliest movie studios.

It was here that future silent film star Harold Lloyd, and producer Hal Roach (best known for his Laurel & Hardy and Our Gang comedies), first joined forces in 1915 to create their earliest films.  The pair, along with Lloyd co-stars Bebe Daniels and Snub Pollard, created more than one hundred films during their time working together at the mansion.  Lloyd and Roach remained at the mansion until 1920, when Roach built new facilities out in Culver City.

Work (1915)

Charlie Chaplin also filmed at the Bradbury Mansion for a few months in 1915 while fulfilling his Essanay Studios contract, just a year after he began his meteoric career at the Keystone Studio.  At left, Chaplin appears on the Bradbury mansion front steps during a sequence from his Essanay comedy Work (1915).

The Bradbury Mansion dominated Court Hill, a once swanky neighborhood perched on a small hill overlooking the nascent Los Angeles civic center, standing between Fort Moore Hill to the east, and Bunker Hill to the west.  Originally Court Hill had no tunnel, but a single bore was completed in 1909 to accommodate trolley traffic from Hollywood, and a second bore for automobiles was completed a few years later.

Click to enlarge. Map by Piet Schreuders

Click to enlarge. At left, Harold Lloyd in High and Dizzy. At right, a similar set built overlooking the twin bore Hill Street Tunnel, for the 1921 Universal serial The Terror Trail. A mannequin is hanging from the broken fire escape. The oval at right helps to show Lloyd's relative position above the ground in the left movie frame. The Bradbury Mansion, used as Lloyd's studio at the time, lies just off camera to the right. Marc Wanamaker - Bison Archives

The distinctive twin-bore Hill Street Tunnel was a local landmark. The Bradbury Mansion, cut off in this image, stood above the left staircase. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library

The Bradbury Mansion stood near the unique twin-bore Hill Street Tunnel running beneath Court Hill.  It was from the western balustrade on Court Street, overlooking the Hill Street Tunnel, that Harold Lloyd filmed his earliest stunt comedies.  Constructing a movie set near the balustrade, and filming it against the city streets far below, created the illusion that the set was high above the ground.  Many comedians filmed here during the silent-era to exploit this effect.  The example above is from Harold Lloyd’s second “thrill” comedy High and Dizzy (1919).  Buster Keaton built a set similar to one shown above for a stunt from his first feature comedy Three Ages (1923), and Charlie Chaplin filmed a brief scene from Shoulder Arms (1918) beside the balustrade as well.

Harold Lloyd's first "thrill" comedy, Look Out Below (1919) filmed beside the Hill Street Tunnel balustrade. Producer Hal Roach stands to the far left, with Lloyd co-star comedian Snub Pollard at back. Lloyd's first leading lady, Bebe Daniels, sits beside Lloyd on the beam. The Bradbury Mansion, off camera to the right, was home for many years to the Rolin Film Company, the studio founded by in 1914 Roach and Daniel Linthicum, that would be re-named the Hal Roach Studios when production moved to new facilities in Culver City in 1920. Lloyd worked with Roach for many years before leaving, amicably, to form his own production company in 1924. Marc Wanamaker - Bison Archives

The Court Flight funicular railway leading up to the Bradbury Mansion site. Security Pacific National Bank Photograph Collection/Los Angeles Public Library.

The Bradbury Mansion was also served by the second of Los Angeles’s two funicular railways.  While many Los Angelenos are familiar with Angels Flight, the original funicular railway built beside the Third Street Tunnel in 1901 to serve Bunker Hill, and recently returned to service following decades in storage, a second railway named Court Flight ran from Broadway to the top of Court Hill for nearly 40 years, until it was abandoned in 1943.   For many years the judges working at the Court House on Broadway would take their lunch breaks by crossing the street to Court Flight, and riding uphill to a restaurant operating out of the Bradbury Mansion.   After the Bradbury Mansion was demolished in 1929, its former site was used as a hilltop parking lot for city government employees.   The Hill Street Tunnel was demolished in 1955, and Court Hill itself was graded flat and hauled away one truckload at a time, to make way for more state and city government buildings.   Today the site of the former Bradbury Mansion along Hill Street is several stories in the air above the current sidewalk.

The Artist (C) La Petite Reine, The Weinstein Company.   Work (1915), (c) 1999 Film Preservation Associates.

HAROLD LLOYD images and the names of Mr. Lloyd’s films are all trademarks and/or service marks of Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc. Images and movie frame images reproduced courtesy of The Harold Lloyd Trust and Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc.

The Bradbury Building

View Larger Map

The Artist Locations Part 3, Harold Lloyd, and Safety Last!

The Artist, George Valentin, portrayed by Jean Dujardin, takes a bow on the historic Orpheum Theater stage. Color image by Kara Brugman; http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyperbolation/2675673050/

After first posting about the location and studio connections between The Artist (2011) and Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, and then posting about the connections between The Artist and Roger Rabbit and Buster Keaton, it’s time for Harold Lloyd to get in on the act.

The Artist begins with the triumphant 1927 Hollywood premiere of silent film star George Valentin’s latest hit movie, A Russian Affair.  In my first post I explain that the Warner Bros. backlot stood in for exterior shots of the theater.  The interior scenes, where George basks in the adulation of his fans, was filmed inside the historic Orpheum Theater, located in the heart of the Los Angeles Historic Core, at 842 S. Broadway.

Click to enlarge. This circa 1928 photo looks up Broadway from Tenth Street (now Olympic). The newly completed Los Angeles City Hall appears as the white tower in the far background. Harold Lloyd filmed the clock stunt from Safety Last! (1923) on the roof top of 908 S. Broadway (red oval above), just steps away from the Orpheum Theater that opened in 1926. Today the Art Deco Ninth and Broadway Building, completed in 1930, obscures the painted Orpheum Theater wall sign. The yellow oval marks where Lloyd returned to film climbing stunts in Feet First (1930), see further below. California Historical Society, Title Insurance and Trust Photo Collection, Department of Special Collections, University of Southern California.

The Orpheum Theater first opened February 15, 1926.  No expense was spared in the theater’s design and construction, from its beautiful marble lobby and magnificent chandeliers, to the leaded glass panels beneath its enormous balcony.  In its heyday, Will Rogers, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and the Marx Brothers all played at the Orpheum.  Mr. Orpheum, for whom the theater was named, was the “O” of RKO Pictures (Radio-Keith-Orpheum).   The theater’s famous Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ is the last remaining originally installed theater organ in Los Angeles.  The theater is one of the crown jewels of the Broadway movie palaces located in the downtown Historic Core, and appears frequently in movie and television productions.

Matching views from the Orpheum Theater stage, appearing in The Artist, and following the Los Angeles Conservancy's 2011 screening of Safety Last!

Harold Lloyd filmed his iconic skyscraper clock sequence from Safety Last!, and similar death-dying scenes from his second talking picture Feet First, on the rooftops of extant buildings located just steps from the Orpheum Theater appearing in The Artist.  In all, Lloyd filmed five building-climbing stunt pictures in the Los Angeles Historic Core, which I dissect in great detail in my Harold Lloyd location book Silent Visions.

Click to enlarge. Harold Lloyd filmed similar climbing stunts for his second talking feature Feet First atop the Southern California Gas Company Building, the yellow oval in the prior historic photo. His rooftop set appears in greater detail at the right. Lloyd built a similar set and camera tower for the clock sequence in Safety Last!, filmed atop 908 S. Broadway, the building marked with a red oval above. The vertical blade sign for the Orpheum Theater is marked with a yellow box in both images. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Color image Jeffrey Castel De Oro.

Click to enlarge - during the filming of Feet First (1930).

Lloyd achieved the illusion of filming at great height by constructing the facade of a building atop a tall building, adjacent to a tall camera tower.  The camera looked down from the tower on the face of the set, and the street far below, while keeping the real building’s roof outside the bottom of the movie frame.  Because the camera recorded exactly what was there to be seen, these scenes crackle with authenticity that blue-screen computer effects fail to replicate.

This aerial view shows the proximity of the Orpheum Theater to where Lloyd filmed stunt scenes from Safety Last! and Feet First. (c) 2012 Microsoft Corporation, Pictometry Bird's Eye (c) 2010 Pictometry International Corp.

Suzanne Lloyd and the author introducing Safety Last! at the Orpheum Theater, by Stephen Russo, GSC Productions.

Harold’s grand-daughter Suzanne Lloyd and I had the honor of introducing a sold-out screening of Safety Last! on June 29, 2011 at the Orpheum Theatre, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Conservancy’s “Last Remaining Seats.”  As part of the show, I prepared a self-guided walking tour of the downtown Los Angeles locations used by Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!, along with locations from Lloyd’s climbing stunts in Never Weaken (1921) and Feet First (1930), and behind the scenes images showing how Lloyd staged his famous skyscraper-climbing sequences.  You can access the tour here.  Harold Lloyd Safety Last Tour – Silent Visions.

Be sure to see Part 4 of my posts about the The Artist here.

Another of my posts about Safety Last! appears here.

The Artist (C) La Petite Reine, The Weinstein Company. 

HAROLD LLOYD images and the names of Mr. Lloyd’s films are all trademarks and/or service marks of Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc. Images and movie frame images reproduced courtesy of The Harold Lloyd Trust and Harold Lloyd Entertainment Inc.

The Orpheum Theater 
View Larger Map