"Smog"

When we first see Annie Girardot 30 minutes into Franco Rossi's "Smog" (Titanus/Gala Film Distributors, 1962) she's turning onto Wilshire Blvd. from Orange Dr. and we get a quick look at the Four Star Theatre, 5112 Wilshire. 

 

She turns east in her Thunderbird and we get a better look at the readerboard advertising Luchino Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers." A comment from IMDb: "Girardot and another star of 'Smog,' Renato Salvatori, met while making 'Rocco and His Brothers' and were married by the time they made this film together." 

 

In the next block we get a look at the stagehouse of the Ritz Theatre at 5214 Wilshire. 

 

We get part of the building's facade but cut to a shot of Annie adjusting the radio before we can see what's on the Ritz marquee. But the theatre was dark at the time of the filming. 

Our male lead in the film, Enrico Maria Salerno, is an Italian attorney and we follow his adventures during a layover on a trip to Mexico to deal with the divorce of a client. Beginning with LAX, of course, we get views of many L.A. area locations including a visit to Pasadena, a scene at some oil wells of Culver City, several visits to the Stahl House, we go bowling at the Hollywood Legion Lanes bowling alley and take a ride down Hollywood Boulevard. 

 

In a drive west we get a look at the Hollywood Theatre at Hollywood and Highland. Well, we almost get a look at the marquee. It's the mess of lights seen inside the steering wheel. 

Bruce Kimmel comments about the shoot, done sometime in the fall of 1961: 

"'Rocco' opened on September 20 at the Four-Star and played at least six weeks there, so hard to pinpoint when this was shot exactly. If it was that first two weeks then 'Guns of Navarone' was at the Hollywood. As to the Ritz, it was closed. It closed after the run of 'Scent of Mystery' in May of 1960. By that time, it wasn't a Fox West Coast theater anymore and was listed in the Independent Theaters section, which means Mike Todd, Jr. himself four-walled its run there, which given the huge flop it was, ran almost four months there."

Production designer Aldo Capuano once commented that the title didn't refer to the dirty air in Los Angeles but rather to the haze in the brains of the many Italians that the attorney meets during his wanderings.  The Cinematography was by Ted D. McCord. And it's actually quite nice. The images seen here were taken from a poor DVD.

See the pages about the Four Star, the Ritz and the Hollywood Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more about these show places. 

 

A poster appearing on a page about the film on the site Shock Cinema. There's a similar poster on the "Smog" page of the site Letterboxd.

While the film got a UK release, it evidently didn't play anywhere in the US until a screening at LACMA's Bing Theatre years later. The Getty screened the film in 2013. The Getty Research Institute website has a page with notes prepared for that screening: 

"The laconic and moody 'Smog' (1962, 35 mm, 88 min.) is a little-known film from director Franco Rossi that presents a compelling outsider's perspective, following Italian attorney Vittorio Ciocchetti (Enrico Maria Salerno) through two days in the City of Angels. Stumbling upon several expatriates from his homeland, Ciocchetti is shown the vast and enigmatic city through their eyes, from Los Angeles International Airport and Pierre Koenig's Stahl Residence (both newly built) to the oil wells of Culver City. Ciocchetti's encounters reveal a stark contrast between the liberated lifestyle of midcentury Los Angeles and the struggles of postwar Italy.

"Rossi's depiction of Los Angeles is unique, devoid of sensationalism, and true to the city's eclectic mix of landscapes, cultures, social strata, and peculiar vocations. Smog was the first European film with the majority of its footage shot in Los Angeles, and Rossi and his screenwriters spent three months of preproduction absorbing the city's atmosphere. Shooting included several significant locations, particularly newly built architectural experiments, that do not appear in the final film. However, these omitted scenes are referenced in various reviews from the 1960s and '70s, which detail different iterations of the film, title, and credit changes as well as stalled international distribution deals..."

UCLA's Billy Wilder Theatre screened it in March 2022.

On IMDb: "Smog"   

 

A lobby card appearing on IMDb. 

A poster from IMDb.