I assume I’m not the only one here who is forever distracted by background locations in old Hollywood movies, and who tries to figure where it was filmed? This is a case in point. In this scene from “Why Worry?” (1923) Harold Lloyd is confronting a policeman as onlookers crowd the northwest corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga Blvds in Hollywood. What I didn’t know was that prior to Kress opening their five-and-dime department store at 6608 Hollywood Blvd in 1934, they had a smaller store at that intersection. I also love that five-bulb street light, but I especially love that bell on the right. It designates the El Camino Real Highway. I believe (but might be wrong) that the rectangular sign below it gives mileage to the nearest mission.
** UPDATE** – Although he looks really short in this photo, Harold Lloyd was five foot ten. The guy playing the policeman was John Aasen who suffered from gigantism and stood seven foot five.
Jay S says: “From IMDB: ‘Ringling Brothers circus giant Cardiff Giant (aka George Auger) was contracted to play the role of Colosso, but died shortly after filming began. A nationwide publicity campaign was instituted to find a replacement. Norwegian John Aasen, living in Minnesota, was discovered as a result of a newspaper article about his shoe size.’”
Bill M says: “The sign on the El Camino Real Bell shows Mission San Fernando 3 miles. The one facing the other direction would give the miles to Mission San Gabriel. The bells were relocated to the Hollywood Freeway (101) in the 1950s.”
Al M says: “What’s also interesting, and goes right by the modern eye, is the sign for Stein’s makeup. Makeup for the masses was fairly new in the early 1920s and Steins was one of Max Factor’s main competitors – so a sign that big during that era was extremely significant. As far as I knew, Steins was based in NYC . . I know they were down in the Bowery for the longest time supplying materials for Broadway shows. I had no idea they had an LA presence at any time.”
This is how the northwest corner of Hollywood and Cahuenga Blvds looked in May 2022.
The Mission named on the sign actually did read “MISSION SAN FERNANDO” and gave a mileage that looked like a single digit. However the distance was some 13 or so miles by the Auto Club maps so we can only expect that there may have been some photographic anomaly that compressed the two numbers. The arrow was clear however so it might be another explanation. San Gabriel lay to the east in that valley. I looked at a similar sign down on Wilshire and Vermont and could see how the mileage might be altered by the camera lens at an oblique angle. 11 might appear as 1, so 13 might blend into a 3 etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. (Shaving my head now.) Cahuenga was the traditional turn-up to achieve wagon roads into and across the valley. Auto Club routes would have been similar distances. Of course they might just be giving the mileage to get to the actual road out to the mission where another sign might have been located.
Aha, Herman the German got a close-up photo years later. It was 18 miles to San Fernando and the other sign, now repositioned lower, showed 7 miles back to the Plaza downtown where routes began. The specific location of his image was listed as unidentified, but now we generally know especially since he had been taking shots all down the boulevard then.