I recently went down a rabbit-hole researching the history of what is known nowadays as the Culver Studios at 9336 W. Washington Blvd, Culver City, but has been known as Ince Studios, DeMille Studios, RKO-Pathé Studios, Selznick Intl Pictures, and Desilu. This photo in particular caught my eye. In the late 1920s, Cecil B. DeMille decided to leave Paramount and strike out on his own as an independent producer. He found the job was a lot harder than it looked and so he didn’t last long. But while he was there, this is what his office looked like. It was on the third floor of the building known as “The Mansion” (the studio’s admin building modeled on George Washington’s Mt Vernon estate and became familiar to movie-goers when David O. Selznick used it as his logo in the 1940s.) Between the swords and guns mounted on the wall, and the huge polar bear rug on the floor, this is clearly the office of a man of his time. But I have to wonder how many visitors and secretaries tripped over that damned rug.
Whenever I think of “The Mansion” this is what I picture:
“The Mansion” at Culver Studios, Culver City, CA during the time when Cecil B. DeMille leased the studio, circa late 1920s:
In this atmospheric shot, we’re looking north up Spring St toward 3rd St in downtown Los Angeles. The year was 1907, when the streets of LA were still being shared by horses with carriage and those new-fangled horseless carriages. This is one of those photos where I can practically hear the clang of the streetcar, the wail of the klaxon, and the clip-clop of the horses. I also love seeing those 5-lamp streetlights.
I’m not sure how the photographer took this photo of the Carthay Circle Theater at 6316 San Vicente Blvd, but it makes for a memorable shot. Not just because it takes in the whole spectacular theater, but because it includes something we don’t often see out front of it: some sort of animal pen holding what appears to be an ox. On the marquee we can see that the movie playing at the time was MGM’s “The Good Earth” which is about the hardscrabble lives of Chinese peasants. Its premiere was on January 29, 1937, so I assume that poor ox was some sort of promo put together by the studio? The Carthay Circle opened in 1926 and was demolished in 1969.
Here we have a wonderfully atmospheric nighttime shot of the Lone Palm Gas Station somewhere in Long Beach, California in 1934. I couldn’t find much information on it, so I don’t know if that lone palm tree is real or not (those fronds look suspiciously evenly balanced) however they do proudly serve Sunset Gasoline, which is a brand I don’t recall coming cross before. It sounds like a very Californian name, though, doesn’t it?
In this wide shot from 1934, we’re looking north on Glendon Ave toward Lindbrook Dr. in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, close to UCLA. With their soaring towers, those gas stations—Richfield and 76—really want motorists to notice them. We can also see the round turret of Ralph’s supermarket, the dome of the Janss building and Fox Theatre tower. But can anyone tell me what that truck with three loudspeakers is doing in the middle of the photo?
In this aerial shot of Hollywood follows Highland Ave as it crosses Hollywood Blvd (near the bottom of the photo) then bends to the right before it heads north into the Cahuenga Pass. That white triangle to the right is the wall of the Mulholland Dam/Hollywood Reservoir. The photo was taken in 1926, so it predates Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, which opened the following year. That house on the hill about halfway up Highland was built in 1909 by real estate investor, lawyer, banker, newspaper editor, and philanthropist, Rollin B. Lane. In 1961 it was redeveloped as the Magic Castle, a private club for magicians.
The only thing I know about this photo is that it was taken somewhere in Los Angeles in 1915. But you have to laugh—these two cars had the entire intersection to themselves and they STILL managed to get into a tangle. Was that third car making its getaway also involved? Was this the first documented incidence of road rage in LA?
There are few things more striking than a well-lit night shot of a store that uses neon effectively. This photo came with no caption so I’m not 100% of its location. However, a follower of mine on Facebook found the below photo for a Shopping Bag market at 3100 Foothill Blvd in La Crescenta. The circa 1949 photo below is from a different angle but it looks very similar. Along side it is a Google Street View photo from February 2023.
For those of you in Southern California:
This photo from the early 1930s shows the lengths to which MGM’s PR department would go to publicize an upcoming Greta Garbo release. A billboard would have been easier, quicker, and cheaper, but this was one of their biggest stars at her peak, so they built this huge roadside display somewhere in LA and made sure the most important word got the most attention: GARBO. The “FEB 9” refers to the movie’s big premiere, which took place at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on February 9, 1934 ahead of a 6-week run at a time when most movies got only one week.