Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC
You didn't give a time frame or area, but the 1956 CD lists the Comet Club at 1651 Cahuenga Boulevard (just south of Hollywood Boulevard). From 1960 to 1967 it's listed as Club Comet. The 1968 and 1969 CDs have something called The Happy Hour there, and by 1973 it's Speak 39. Jump forward to 1987 and it's Hollywood Video. As you can see from the picture below, 1651 Cahuenga Boulevard is now Cahuenga Video (and has been for at least 10 years).
GSV |
Thanks,
HossC!
I thought I had checked those CD's once, but I confess they really confuse me more often than not.
The time period would have been the 60's if recollection serves. Sal Mineo wasn't 21 until 1960, but I suppose they might have let him in regardless of age!
I found a Silent Film Location post by John Bengston, where he talks about an early 20's Keaton film titled Cops:
I’ve written frequently about the alley on Cahunega, steps south from Hollywood Boulevard, where Buster grabs a passing car one-handed in Cops, the only movie in Keaton’s oeuvre filmed completely outdoors, showing that Charlie Chaplin (The Kid, 1921), Harold Lloyd (Safety Last!, 1923) and even Harry Houdini (The Grim Game, 1919), filmed there as well.
Moreover, 1651 Cahuenga, the reflected building with the diagonally cropped corner entrance standing across the street from the Keaton stunt site (see reversed image below), once a rubber and vulcanizing store belonging to Harley H. Andrews, is now a porn shop.
John Bengston post
[Cahuenga Alley filming may have been previously mentioned.]
Looking at the present GSV photo provided by
HossC and the film article, I notice at the top left is a lighted sign in the shape of a star with a tail cascading down from it...and I wondered if it was previously used for the Comet Club/Club Comet location as comets are often depicted like that, and perhaps it used that adjacent space as well.
The Cinema Treasures Site has this address location listed for a Bijou Theater and describes it thusly:
Located a block off of Hollywood Boulevard, the Bijou Adult Theatre was one of the numerous storefront adult cinemas that popped up in Hollywood during the 1970’s. Period photos depict a relatively small corner unit, with a surprisingly formal cinema marquee; reminiscent of the marquees seen on “classic” mainstream theatres. Programming was billed as “All color hits all nite”, triple features running continuously for a $3 admission price.
The theatre first appeared in independent listings circa 1975 [right after HossC's notation that it's listed as Speak39 in 1973] and continued to regularly advertise throughout the remainder of the decade. With the arrival of home video in the 1980’s, the Bijou Theatre transitioned away from cinema operations and became a standard adult video/magazine store; replacing the formerly impressive marquee signage with a generic retail lightbox. Today, the site operates as the Cahuenga Video Adult Book Store.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/44957
I found a photo of this at Hollywood Photographs.
The building does not have that star sign with the tail, so it probably wasn't part of the Comet Club establishment.
Although, the Bijou marquee also has neon stars on it with comet tails...?
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If the business offered gas, food and lodging, as GlendaleBill pondered, it might have appeared on Auto Club "triptik maps of the period.
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