"Detour"

Ann Savage and Tom Neal head east on Hollywood Blvd. in search of a car dealer in Edgar G. Ulmer's "Detour" (Producers Releasing Corporation, 1945). Thanks to Dave Hunter for spotting the various theatres seen in this sequence. 

In this process shot they're passing the Iris Theatre, 6508 Hollywood Blvd. In the footage they used, dating from 1938, the theatre was running "The Buccaneer" with Fredric March, Franciska Gaal and Akim Tamiroff.  The Iris was renamed the Fox in 1968. Over on the right it's a bit of the marquee of the Colony Theatre, 6523 Hollywood Blvd. That house ended up being called the Holly.  

Tom plays a piano player hitching west to see his girlfriend. Along the way he acquires a car and a new identity. His troubles really start when he offers Ann's character a ride. The film also features Claudia Drake and Edmund MacDonald. Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney were the writers. The cinematography was by Benjamin H. Kline.  

See the pages about the Iris / Fox and the Colony / Holly on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more information and many, many photos.

 

Next a bit of the curved marquee of the Warner Hollywood comes into view on the right. It's at 6433 Hollywood Blvd.   

 

A moment later we see the Warner's banner for the April 1938 release "The Adventures of Marco Polo" starring Gary Cooper.

See the pages on the Los Angeles Theatres site about the Warner Hollywood for a history of the theatre, opened in 1928.  

 

They find a used car dealer but decide to not sell the car and head back west. She's got a new plan for him and he's even unhappier. In the background, above the mirror, we get a bit of the vertical of the Pantages Theatre at 6233 Hollywood Blvd. 

See the pages about the Pantages Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres website for a history of this 1930 vintage showplace along with hundreds of photos.

On IMDb: "Detour"

"Ring Up the Curtain"

We get a look at the outside of the Iris Theatre, 6508 Hollywood Blvd., in "Ring Up the Curtain" (Rolin Films/Pathé, April 1919). Alf Goulding directed the 14 minute film starring Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels and "Snub" Pollard. Here the manager is fuming because his cast hasn't yet appeared and he's frustrated with his somewhat drunk crew.

The Iris opened in 1918. See the Los Angeles Theatres page about the Fox Theatre for a history of the building along with many photos. It was renamed the Fox in 1968. In 1916 Lloyd, Daniels and Pollard were seen up the street at the Hollywood Theatre in "Luke's Movie Muddle."

Lloyd chatting up a dancer played by Bebe Daniels backstage. It's unknown where the interiors were filmed.

A roller drop going up. 

Three of the drunk stagehands getting tossed out the door. Those metal-clad doors may have actually been a theatre exit somewhere.

Thanks to silent film detective John Bengtson for spotting the Iris in the film. Check on his latest explorations via the Silent Locations blog "Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more)." 

John's books are available through Amazon or your local bookseller: "Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton" | "Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin" | "Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd"

On IMDb: "Ring Up the Curtain"   The film can be viewed on YouTube.

"The Nut"

Douglas Fairbanks is at the Iris Theatre in Hollywood for a scene in "The Nut" (United Artists, March 1921). Theodore Reed directed the 70 minute feature about an eccentric investor looking for funding for a plan devised by his girlfriend to help poor children. Others in the cast include Marguerite De La Motte, William Lowery and Gerald Pring.

 A chat with the boxoffice girl. 

Heading in the door. Note the poster for the Lois Weber film "To Please One Woman," a December 1920 release from Paramount. The Iris, at 6508 Hollywood Blvd., opened in 1918. See the Los Angeles Theatres page about the Fox Theatre for a history of the building along with many photos. It was renamed the Fox in 1968.

Thanks to silent film detective John Bengtson for spotting the theatre in the film and providing the screenshots. Check on his latest explorations via the Silent Locations blog "Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more)." 

John's books are available through Amazon or your local bookseller: "Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton" | "Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin" | "Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd"

On IMDb: "The Nut"

"Hollywood Snapshots"

A shot of the actor Lloyd Hughes in front of the Iris Theater, 6508 Hollywood Blvd. Thanks to John Bengtson for the screenshot from "Hollywood Snapshots" (Hodkinson Films, 1922). It appears, with many other shots from the film, on his Silent Locations post "Hollywood Snapshots - a 1922 Time Machine." He notes that we can see the name of the theatre in the tile floor behind Hughes and that in 1922 Hughes starred with Mary Pickford in "Tess of the Storm Country."

See the Los Angeles Theatres page about the Iris, in 1968 rebranded as the Fox Theatre. It's a building still on Hollywood Blvd., although seriously remodeled both inside and out.  

In his post, John uses shots from other films, as well as vintage photos, to identify many locations. He comments: "Facing a public relations nightmare in 1922 over recent scandals, the film community produced 'Hollywood Snapshots,' a promotional film portraying screen folk as wholesome to middle America...'Snapshots' captures remarkable images of burgeoning early Hollywood, including Hollywood Boulevard, the Famous Players – Lasky Studio, and the Pickford – Fairbanks Studio."

The thirteen and a half minute film is online from the National Film Preservation Foundation, copied from a 35mm tinted nitrate print from the Academy Film Archives discovered in the New Zealand Film Archives collection in 2010. Again thanks to John Bengtson for spotting the film on the NFPF website and providing a link to it in his post. The NFPF site discusses the film:

"As scandals rocked Hollywood in the early 1920s—the suspicious poisoning of Paramount star Olive Thomas followed by the scandalous Fatty Arbuckle trials—the American movie industry teetered on the edge of a public relations disaster. Speaking before the Motion Picture Directors Association in September 1921 (six months before the sensational murder of its president, William Desmond Taylor), William Wadsworth Hodkinson, a founder of Paramount Studios, argued that Hollywood needed to “fight for certain standards of cleanliness and decency…that you want preserved in your home and in society generally.” In early 1922, amid growing calls for national censorship, Hollywood recruited Will Hayes, the sober Postmaster General of the United States, to head the new Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. His mission was to encourage the movie industry to police itself and turn around public opinion.

"This unidentified reel, titled 'Hollywood Snapshots' in the New Zealand Film Archive inventory, dates from shortly after Hayes’s arrival. It follows Hezekiah, a visitor from the sticks, who searches through Screenland for scandal. But instead of wine, women, and song, the country rube encounters denizens reading books, playing with pets, pampering children, and attending church. Over the course of his trek across Beverly Hills and Hollywood, he meets several dozen lesser-known celebrities—Carter De Haven, Katherine McGuire, Viola Dana, Jack Kerrigan, Owen Moore—visits landmarks, and enjoys scenes from 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' (1921) and the now-lost 'Trifling Women' (1922). Finding that movie stars are a wholesome lot—and at bottom remarkably like the folks back home—Hezekiah leaves town, a wiser man.

"'Hollywood Snapshots' makes its point by grafting a simple storyline onto the format of the popular film-fan newsreel showing screen celebrities at work and at play. In an informative illustrated research paper, Paramount archivist Charles Stepczyk argues that this fascinating example of Hollywood spin control was made as a community service for the motion picture industry. He traces the HF logo of the intertitles (center, bottom frame) to Hodkinson Films, concluding that Hodkinson would have had the clout to exact cooperation from the several studios linked with the pictured stars. Many thanks to Charles for his excellent film history detective work!"

See "Hodkinson, Hays and Hollywood," a discussion by Paramount archivist Charles Stepczyk about why the film was produced. It's a pdf on the NFPF website. 

The film can also be seen on YouTube. 

"The Killing"

We're all over town in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" (United Artists, 1956). It's a film about a heist at a race track. This shot is looking west from the top of the 3rd St. Tunnel. We'll be back to this neighborhood later in the film when Sterling Hayden buys a suitcase for the loot in the 800 block.

As we pan down there's a view of the building that used to be the Tunnel Theatre, 712 W. 3rd St. The arched opening on the lower left was the theatre entrance. By the 50s it had been a garage for decades. See the page about the Tunnel Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for more data.

Here we're on Hollywood Blvd. as Sterling Hayden is coming out of a store just east of the Warner Hollywood, 6433 Hollywood Blvd. The fuzzy marquee in the background is the Warner.

As Hayden gets into his car we get a glimpse in the background of the Iris Theatre. It's the second vertical down -- the first is for a Karl's shoe store.

Another frame a moment later gives us sharper look at the Iris, 6508 Hollywood Blvd.  See the pages on the Warner Hollywood and the Iris, later rebranded as the Fox Theatre, for more on those two buildings, both still on Hollywood Blvd.

Hayden has engineered a heist at the track. His buddies have all been killed so he has all the loot. He heads to a pawn shop on W. 3rd St. to buy the biggest suitcase he could find to put it all in for his flight to Boston. It doesn't end well for him -- he needed better locks on the suitcase. A lovely film.

That pawn shop is adjacent to the Lux Theatre, 827 W. 3rd St., here seen at the right of the frame. It's no longer with us -- a victim of the Bunker Hill redevelopment. See the page about the Lux Theatre for more details. The posters we see for Lenny Bruce with a burlesque show aren't for the Lux -- they're for the Gayety Club in Hollywood.

On IMDb: "The Killing"

"45 Minutes From Hollywood"

In the Glenn Tryon two-reeler "45 Minutes From Hollywood" (Hal Roach Studios, 1926) we get a very brief shot just west of Wilcox which gives us a look at the Iris Theatre on the right. The film, directed by Fred Guiol, revolves around a young visitor to Hollywood who, when seeing a bank robbery in progress, thinks it's a film shoot.  Also in the cast, in addition to Tryon, are Oliver Hardy and Charlotte Mineau. It's included on disc 6 of "The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy" collection.

Thanks to Chris Bungo, silent film location expert, for the screenshot. He has it on both the Photos of Los Angeles and Vintage Los Angeles Facebook pages. Here we're on a tour bus seeing the Hollywood sights. Don't miss the video Chris did of the filming locations in his eleven minute "then and now" epic on YouTube.

The Iris is seen here with "What Fools Men" (First National, released September 1925) on the marquee. That film starred Lewis Stone and Shirley Mason.  The theatre, at 6508 Hollywood Blvd.,  opened in 1918 and was re-branded as the Fox in 1968. It's now a nightclub. See our page on the Fox Theatre for more information and photos.

On IMDb: "45 Minutes From Hollywood"