Last night I watched the Warren Beatty/Annette Bening movie “Bugsy” (1991) and was struck at how well they recreated 1940s Los Angeles. It’s no wonder it won the Oscar for Best Art Direction. But there was one shot of Vine Street at night that I thought was particularly striking. I was pretty sure I had a photo of the real thing so I freeze-framed my TV and took a photo of and went hunting in my archives. Sure enough, I did find a shot of Vine Street Hollywood looking north. It was taken during WWII so it’s darker than the recreation (LA had a lot of blackouts and dimouts during the war) but now that I can see them together, I think they did a marvelous job.
(The top photo is the one taken during WWII and the bottom photo is the shot I took of my TV screen last night.)
After recently posting that shot of 1940s Vine Street recreated for the movie “Bugsy” (1991) someone just sent me a photo of the matte painting used. Apparently the painting was six feet wide.
They do a marvelous job with CGI recreating old landscapes in the movies nowadays. I recently saw the Perry Mason series on HBO. The opening scenes on Angels Flight are a terrific recreation of it in its original location next to the 3rd Street tunnel.
Last night I watched the Warren Beatty/Annette Bening movie “Bugsy” (1991) and was struck at how well they recreated 1940s Los Angeles. It’s no wonder it won the Oscar for Best Art Direction. But there was one shot of Vine Street at night that I thought was particularly striking. I was pretty sure I had a photo of the real thing so I freeze-framed my TV and took a photo of and went hunting in my archives. Sure enough, I did find a shot of Vine Street Hollywood looking north. It was taken during WWII so it’s darker than the recreation (LA had a lot of blackouts and dimouts during the war) but now that I can see them together, I think they did a marvelous job.
They do a marvelous job with CGI recreating old landscapes in the movies nowadays. I recently saw the Perry Mason series on HBO. The opening scenes on Angels Flight are a terrific recreation of it in its original location next to the 3rd Street tunnel.
I’ve had several people comment to me about how beautifully they’ve recreated that era, with specific reference to Angels Flight.