It’s not every day we get a peek inside one of the big Sunset Strip nightclubs during Hollywood’s heyday, and this was one of the first. It’s the Café Trocadero, a swanky, black-tie, French inspired nightclub opened on September 18, 1934, by Billy Wilkerson, owner of “The Hollywood Reporter” in a renovated warehouse where he used to store his alcohol after the repeal of Prohibition. This was also the venue for the “Gone With The Wind” premiere party in 1939. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s not swankier. Their only decoration appears to be that line of 17 sombreros and those palm trees (to make it look like the Cocoanut Grove?) Still, I’d give my eye teeth to have spent one evening there at the Troc’s mid-1930s peak.
Interior shot of Cafe Trocadero, 8610 Sunset Blvd on the Sunset Strip, West Hollywood, 1937
Those bamboo palms are pretty crude for a Hollywood hot spot.
That’s what I thought!
Yes, but factor in the moody lamp-lit tables and equal measures of music and booze… you got more atmosphere than needed.
Very true, Alistair. After all, lighting *is* everything!
The band area has glass blocks, covered over in the photo, but perhaps revealed when operating. The china has swags around the border, and maybe the tablecloths are in a complementary color. Plenty of ventillation to handle the smoke, and those light fixtures (glass boxes) might have some hidden secret? Throw in some nicely outfitted customers, a few cigarette girls, and the house shutterbug…and boom…time for the paddy wagon and five reporters!
I assumed vents in the glass boxes was air conditioning to keep those glamorpusses on the dance floor cool.
Like Alistair, I was taken with the table lamps. Are they wired down through the table base? And I worry about the conversation that led to the mounting of the sombreros. (“Hey, we could get some som… ” ??)
I”m guessing it was a one-off themed night.
I’m guessing rather than electric the glass table lamps are either alcohol or oil lamps with the bulb at the base being a fuel reservoir
I hadn’t thought about that but I guess you could be right.
It does look a little like a basement multi-purpose room at a church. I’m sure that the service and the guests themselves were what made it swanky.
And lighting. It’s all about the lighting.
An electric cord is visible running left to right from the base of the table just off the left border of the image. Perhap a tablecloth with a center hole and a lamp that could be plugged in right at it’s base. Still, imagine all those high heels catching that extension…guess folks just weren’t as clumsy in those days.