In 1924, after a disastrous shoot in Italy, MGM made the expensive decision to bring their mammoth production of “Ben-Hur” back to Los Angeles and start over. To film the spectacular Circus Maximus chariot race in which Ben-Hur (Ramon Novarro) faces off against the villainous Messala (Francis X. Busman), MGM built an enormous set where La Cienega and Venice Boulevards meet. Even though only half the Circus was needed for filming, the set was so vast that MGM had trouble filling it with enough extras (the pay was $5 a day and a boxed lunch) so they ended up filling the gaps with store window mannequins.
**UPDATE** – Anonymous said: “Looking at Google Maps myself, I’d say you’re mistaken about this location. We are looking West and the street in the upper left is most definitely Venice Blvd. La Cienega was not a divided at that location. The Diagonal road cutting closest to the set then is Fairfax, not Venice. You can tell from the aerial because Kaiser Permanente is East of La Cienega blvd. but West of Fairfax. The diagonal road running from the middle of the left side to the upper right is Sawyer. And in this picture the road at the top is Airdrome, The road at the bottom is Venice and the third side of the triangle is Fairfax. Crescent Heights is to the left of Kaiser and Sawyer is two streets below. So La Cienega wasn’t near this set. “
Here is another shot:
As we can see from this satellite photo taken in 2020, all that empty land is now teeming with humanity – and freeways.
I think the set was on the north side of Venice at Cadillac, running northwest towards the intersection of La Cienega and Sawyer. Note the layout of the streets in the top of the photo. These are the streets that run south from Cadillac. This 1928 map shows the street layout of the time. http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/maps/1928_los_angeles_transit_map.jpg
In 1924, after a disastrous shoot in Italy, MGM made the expensive decision to bring their mammoth production of “Ben-Hur” back to Los Angeles and start over. To film the spectacular Circus Maximus chariot race in which Ben-Hur (Ramon Novarro) faces off against the villainous Messala (Francis X. Busman), MGM built an enormous set where La Cienega and Venice Boulevards meet. Even though only half the Circus was needed for filming, the set was so vast that MGM had trouble filling it with enough extras (the pay was $5 a day and a boxed lunch) so they ended up filling the gaps with store window mannequins.
I think the set was on the north side of Venice at Cadillac, running northwest towards the intersection of La Cienega and Sawyer. Note the layout of the streets in the top of the photo. These are the streets that run south from Cadillac. This 1928 map shows the street layout of the time. http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/maps/1928_los_angeles_transit_map.jpg
Hi Bryan, thanks for the link to that marvelous 1928 map. That’s a huge help. And my sincere thanks for clarifying the where the set was.