"A Blueprint For Murder"

We get off to a great start even before the credits with this rare view of the vertical for the Paramount Theatre's Broadway entrance in "A Blueprint For Murder" (20th Century Fox, 1953). It's old footage. The theatre was back on Hill St. and this Broadway entrance was only used for a few years. It's unknown when the sign was last lit but it was taken off the building sometime prior to 1938.

This shot fades to one of an ambulance rushing a sick young girl to the hospital. She had been poisoned. The film isn't set in L.A.. We're supposed to be in New York. Well, they had a Paramount theatre too. But the rest of the signage could only be Los Angeles. On the left we have Swelldom, a store on the northwest corner of 6th and Broadway. And down at 5th is the vertical sign for Walker's department store. On the far right is signage for Silverwood's on the northeast corner of 6th and Broadway.

Andrew Stone directed the cast which included Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Gary Merrill and Catherine McLeod.

For more about the theatre see the pages on the Metropolitan/Paramount Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site. There's also a page just devoted to the theatre's Broadway entrance.

On IMDb: "A Blueprint For Murder"

A lobby card that appears with the film's listing on IMDb.