This is a photo I took of a photo I saw during a recent visit to the Academy Museum. It was taken during the premiere of “Giant” that took place at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on October 17, 1956. I love the dramatic way those searchlights were lined up behind the bleachers where movie fans had gathered to see the parade of stars attending the big event ahead of an impressive 10-week run. And what a parade of stars it was. Go to GraumansChinese.org and scroll down to October and check the loooong list of Hollywood A-listers who were there that night.
Torr L said: “Giant was a huge box-office success. The film earned $35 million in ticket sales during its original studio release in 1956, a record for a Warner Brothers film until that time. This record was not surpassed until the Warner film Superman in the late 1970s.”
Real-life Native Americans aren’t what you expect to see when encountering publicity for a new Hollywood movie. However, it was a whole different story back when this photo was taken in 1925. These Sioux Indians appeared in “The Iron Horse” directed by John Ford, one of five movies he directed that year. It was about the post-Civil War building of the transcontinental railway, hence the name. I assume that’s the locomotive used in the movie because this photo was taken in the (long) forecourt of Sid Grauman’s Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd. (I found this photo on the 
Most photos I find are looking north up Vine St in Hollywood are taken standing at Sunset Blvd, so it’s nice to see this circa early 1950s one taken little farther south down the block. Not only can we see Wallichs music store, but also a place rarely photographed because photographers usually have their back to it: on the southwest corner of Sunset Blvd and Vine St stood the Radio City Pharmacy and Fountain Grill. It took on that name because opposite on the northeast corner were the NBC radio studios aka “Radio City.”
Most photos of Hollywood premieres focus on the entrance, the stars, and the lights, which is understandable. But I love this photo because it highlights those movie fans who would sit in bleachers set up by the studios so they could watch Hollywood luminaries arrive. They’re outside the Pig’N Whistle Café which was next to the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. They’ve gathered for the premiere of MGM’s “Cass Timberlane” which starred Lana Turner and Spencer Tracy. It was January 1948, which explains why that woman in the front is wearing a fur coat. I wonder if afterwards, she went across the street to Pickwick Books (whose electric sign we can see in the background) to buy a copy of the Sinclair Lewis novel the movie was based on.
Here we have an aerial photo of the Santa Monica pier from 1924. We can see the 
I do love finding Los Angeles area supermarket openings that resemble Hollywood movie premieres. This dramatic nighttime photo of the opening of the Great Southwest Market is no exception. This market stood at 5800 S. Vermont Ave, on the northeast corner with Slauson Ave. Those are some serious lights illuminating the store, along with speakers, too. It’s a gorgeously impressive building, especially with those circular windows set back from the outer wall. My friend who works at the Petersen Automotive Museum says that those vehicles silhouetted in the foreground are from the early 1920s.
On May 15, 1915, Carl Laemmle opened Universal City, home to his newly built Universal Pictures, a studio so large that it became its own city. To publicize the event, Universal chartered this train from New York to Los Angeles. I don’t know if that banner stayed in place for the whole journey (which back then would have taken nearly a week) or just when the train pulled into a town. Either way, I hope those seven men (studio executives or just extras?) didn’t have to stand there the whole way.
In this genteel, almost pastoral photo, we’re looking northeast along Aldebaran Canal in Venice, California. Developer Abbot Kinney opened Venice in 1905; this image was taken six years later, in 1911. We can see that quite a few homes had been built during the interim, giving the area more of a community feel. The difference here, of course, is that the main mode of transport around the area was but little boats that could fit under those pedestrian bridges. In time, the canals of Venice would be filled in; these days Aldebaran Canal is now known as Market Street.
So many Angelenos turned out to see presidential hopeful Alf Landon that I wonder how many of these people actually saw the man who lost the most lopsided election in over 100 years. These people crowded the Olive Street sidewalk outside the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA in the runup to the 1936 election in which Landon lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt by more than 10 million votes. But the people I really feel sorry for are the drivers behind the wheels of those cars caught in the middle of that mayhem. I hope they brought something to read because it’d be a while before they got home for dinner.