In this sweeping aerial shot, we’re looking at the Fox Film studio backlot in Century City. The main street at the bottom, where the grand gates are, is Santa Monica Blvd. William Fox founded his studio in 1915 on what had been a 200-acre ranch, and called his backlot “Movietone City.” This shot is from 1928 and as we can see, the neighboring land was still pumping oil!
Here is another aerial photo of the studio looking north from Pico Blvd in 1930. These days, the main gate into the studio is on Pico.
Mr. Fox went through very hard times during the Depression and in 1935 merged with another studio to become 20th Century-Fox. The studio, now owned by Disney, is still situated on the same lot This is what that studio lot looked like in January 2020. Those oil wells are long gone, but it’s still a thriving studio.
I’m a little confused. The MGM backlot was in Culver City. Pico Blvd isn’t in Culver City. I grew up calling that area Cheviot Hills. Right?
You are correct. It’s part of LA.
I guess technically it’s Century City, not Culver City – it looks like I got my cities mixed up!
The backlot used to run from Pico to Santa Monica before the northern part became Century City.
Odd how most of it appears to be outdoor sets & streets for filming, before the big new studio buildings went in on this lower half, yet very few cars are present and only a smattering of stick like figures anywhere in the open. Who could afford to build something like this unless it was running night & day to produce saleable product, and plenty of those films were money losers….no wonder these guys go bust.