"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. 

"The Couch"

We get some fine noirish shots of downtown in Owen Crump's film "The Couch" (Warner Bros., 1962). During the credits we're across the street from the Los Angeles Theatre, 615 S. Broadway. They're running "The Hunters" with Robert Mitchum and May Britt. It looks like the second feature is "In Love and War" with Robert Wagner and Dana Wynter.  Both were fall 1958 releases.

It's a tale of a young guy with psychological problems who is stabbing people on the streets of dangerous downtown. But those killings are just to throw the police off the trail and make them think a real serial killer is on the loose. The only one he really cares about killing is his psychiatrist, who he has confused with his father. Featured are Grant Williams as the troubled guy, Onslow Stevens as the psychiatrist, and Shirley Knight as a receptionist in the doctor's office.

Another shot at the beginning of the film is this view north on Hill St. toward 6th and the big "P" on the side of the Paramount Theatre. It had opened in 1923 as the Metropolitan.

Walking south on Broadway in search of a victim. In the distance below the bright sign there's a bit of the dark marquee of the Palace Theatre visible at 630 S. Broadway.

We're at 7th and Hill looking out from behind the cashier at the Warner Downtown Theatre.

Thanks to Marlaine Wilson Hysell for spotting the theatres in the film. See the pages on the Los Angeles Theatres site about the Los Angeles, Metropolitan/Paramount, Palace and Warner Downtown for a history of each building along with many photos.

On IMDb: "The Couch"