3/19/2023 0 Comments The cameraman just kept filming![]() Santa Monica’s Slapstick Comedy Cliffs – How Did They Do It?.Follow Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more) on.Talking Buster Keaton – The Blacksmith 11:30.Talking Buster Keaton – Neighbors 24:30.I also enjoyed going into Robinson’s Beautilities on Venice Blvd - they used it in the movie Fun With Dick and Jane (Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni) - early on in my visits there I found jump suits (ala Elvis) and boots and they had names in them… they were first names of Osmonds! It was awesome to hold those as I was especially a fan of the Osmonds as a youngster….sighhhh… I miss LA of the 80s… so much history! Glad I got to meet my most favorite celeb ever (and a few others, as well). I lived in Palms, Mar Vista, Hermosa and Redondo Beach – so for me many of the areas you cover are familiar. I hated moving, but alas I married someone who was not enjoying LA anymore and actually I was having concerns as well…but I miss this aspect of LA so much *sigh* I really really do! Thank you for doing this – it’s right up my alley – I’m very good at internet research and I enjoy that success and sharing with others – so reading and watching your work is quite enjoyable for me on several fronts. Oh my goodness… I lived in Los Angeles for 24 years and I LOVED LOVED LOVED the history of the film industry. If true, they soaked Buster with sea water! ![]() This begs the question – since they filmed the entire sequence so we would NOT notice it was filmed over the water, on a pier, WHY of all places did they film here? The tracking shot travels quite far, so perhaps instead of relying on hundreds of feet of hose lying beside the route, they simply dropped the feed end of the hose over the side of the pier, and ran the submerged feed line in pace with the car. The complex traveling shot with Buster being drenched required mobile overhead rain sprinklers keeping pace with the car and camera car, and plays onscreen as if staged on a local street rather than 20 feet above the water. I was stunned to discover this elaborate sequence was filmed completely on the narrow pier. As shown above, they drive east along the pier past the Bowling-Billiard building and the Loof Carousel-Hippodrome, both still standing. As soon as they take off it begins to pour, completely drenching Buster by the time they return to town. Of course there’s only room for Buster at back in the rumble seat. Again the camera angle hides nearly all of the background detail. Situated on the far end of the pier, the La Monica was once the largest dance hall on the west coast, with a capacity of 5,000. Huntington Digital Library.Īs they adjust the roof, the entrance awning to the landmark La Monica Ballroom (1924- 1963) appears at back. Inset above, Buster helps Harold with his car roof. ![]() Notice the giant La Monica Ballroom in the foreground. Buster later filmed scenes from Spite Marriage (1929) beside the Hotel Carmel at 1451 Second Street in Santa Monica (read more HERE).Ĭlick to enlarge – after missing the bus, Buster’s rival for Marceline’s affection, smooth-talking Harold Goodwin happens to drive by, and offers them a ride home. The bus strategically blocks the side of the pier from view, and no shot in the sequence betrays it was filmed on a pier.Ĭlick to enlarge – while Keaton had filmed at other amusement piers, this marked Santa Monica’s first appearance with Buster. The downhill slope in the background was the initial clue. When it’s time to return home Buster and Marceline fail to catch an overcrowded bus, not in Venice where the plunge was located, but running down the Santa Monica Pier. There’s a keen sense of time-travel to the interior pool scenes, the shiplap walls, the tile floors, you can almost smell the chlorine. For their first date in The Cameraman (1928) Buster Keaton and Marceline Day strip down and go swimming in a public pool, because, why not? As reported in my book Silent Echoes, their natatorium adventure was filmed inside the Venice Plunge (1908-1945), once a huge beachside tourist attraction.
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