This image is actually a screengrab from a documentary called “Los Angeles Plays Itself” which is a 2003 film that looks at all the ways Los Angeles has been depicted (as itself and other locations) in the movies. I freeze-famed on this shot from “Double Indemnity” (1944) when we could see Newman’s Drug Co at the southwest corner of Hollywood Blvd and Western Ave in Hollywood. I liked how it gave us a glimpse into what a corner drugstore in the mid-1940s looked like—as well as treated us to a semaphore traffic signal. (If you’d like to see “Los Angeles Plays Itself”, here’s the link on YouTube.)
Doug P. said: “The Acme Traffic Regulators still had the WWII blackout extensions on them.”
That building is still there and in pretty good condition. This is roughly how that view looked in July 2024.
This building also housed the Hays Office — Home of the Motion Picture Production Code
Blade signs for Billiards and Bowling on the Western Avenue face. This was in the basement. Eventually, the operation name changed but a number of movies needing pool hall scenes were shot down there. I’m not positive, but the scenes in Aloha, Bobby & Rose (1974-5) could have been in there…hard to match without reference images. At some point, they must have stopped film making there and the operations had shifted over west. Then it was no more after a few years. (L.B. Mayer reportedly liked to shoot in his building. Balls, not actors.)
Above the Newman name you can read United Drug, so they were another Rexall related operation.