"The Crooked Web"

A shot of filming happening at the Vista Theatre, 4473 Sunset Dr., for "The Crooked Web" (Columbia, 1955).  Thanks to Ken McIntyre on Photos of Los Angeles for finding the photo. It appears in the Arcadia Publishing book "Location Filming in Los Angeles" by Karie Bible, Marc Wanamaker and Michael Medved.  It's available on Amazon.

There's a nice page discussing the film's Los Angeles locations on the site DVD Talk where Stuart Galbraith calls it a "crackling little B-movie...indicative of the modest but lively movies Columbia Picture's second features unit, Clover Productions, was capable of during the 1950s."

The DVD Talk article mentions that one of our characters is named Stan and is given the occupation of restaurant owner so the production could take advantage of signage of Stan's Drive-In in the background for a shot done near the Vista where Hillhurst, Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset meet.

A look at the Vista Theatre from inside Stan's Drive-In. At the time of the shoot the Vista was running a 1949 German production of "The Marriage of Figaro" with Angelika Hauff and Willy Domgraf-Fassbaender along with the Sadler's Wells Ballet film "A Ghost Story." 

 

Bruce Kimmel notes "This shoot was between April 4th and 10th - the only week that double bill played the Vista. 'The Crooked Web' opened as the bottom half of a double bill on November 23. Top half of the bill was 'Queen Bee' with Joan Crawford."

Another Vista view from "The Crooked Web."

 The Vista in another shot at Stan's Drive-In.

Thanks to Jonathan Raines for the screenshots and for finding the article on DVD Talk. He also directs your attention to a nice Martin Turnbull blog post about the chain of Stan's Drive-Ins.

 See the page about the Vista Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more about the venue, now nicely restored and going strong as a first run house.

On IMdB: "The Crooked Web"  A clip of the scene is on the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page. 

Stan's and the Vista also make an appearance in the 1958 film "The True Story of Lynn Stewart."