Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson
Liberty, George Stevens, 1929
Still from Liberty, a Hal Roach/Laurel&Hardy short (20 mins) from 1929 shot by George Stevens (Shane, Giant) and directed by Leo McCarey (Going My Way, Duck Soup). Here are the boys high above Culver City(?) in a deft piece of staging on a mock-up built atop an existing structure. (I don't believe this is Culver City. It may be the confluence of Main Street, Broadway and Broadway Place. The angle of the sun tells us we're looking south) Is that the 10-story Railway Building over there with the Studebaker sign on it? You know, where Frank Clarke would have flown his Curtiss Jenny about ten years ago. That would be 11th and Broadway, so that would confirm this being Broadway, Broadway Place and Main Street, right? Okay, look over there at Main Street. Where's the pedestrian island and, more to the point, where's our ornate entrance to the subterranean comfort station? Had they simply not been installed yet by 1929? Thoughts?
www.leinwand-lyrik.de/LHP/Presse_Fotos.html |
According to
Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies by Randy Skretvedt (Moonstone Press, 1987), this film was shot in late 1928
on a set built atop the Western Costume Company building, which the 1929 LA City Directory lists at 935 S. Broadway:
The pedestrian island seems to match up between the two pictures.
LAPL (
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics08/00013683.jpg)
This film is the source of an often-told story about L&H: When Laurel became frightened working on the steel girders, Hardy, trying to assure his partner
that they were safe, jumped down onto the safety platform below . . . which collapsed. Luckily there was a safety net under the platform. The story was
recounted -- not entirely accurately -- by director Leo McCarey when L&H were on "This is Your Life" in December 1954. If you can stomach
Ralph Edwards' unctuousness, you can see the segment here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqNE1WaX2jY