After the busy weekend cram-packed full of activity that I had just enjoyed, it seemed as if my vacation was ready to be ending rather than beginning a brand new week with six full days ahead of me! Nevertheless, I awoke bright and early to a phone call from one of my service providers at work informing that some files were not staged for a pinpad upgrade they were performing that morning in one of my stores. This was my fault, so I had to make a few early phone calls. I then shuffled my way out from the guest room couch of my friends the Wileys for breakfast of bacon, eggs, and jellied toast courtesy of Kris. She always takes good care of me.
Jimmy and I didn’t have a great deal of solid plans for the day – Monday, October 3, 2005 – but we decided to fill our hours with some extensive Laurel and Hardy locations touring. Before we made it to Culver City, we had to stop by his office so he could do a little bit of work. This was the first time I had been there, so I tinkered around on the computer. Jimmy then took me out to an interesting Japanese buffet called O Nami. To date it was the only one I have ever been to and it was quite different from the typical Chinese buffet, of which we have so many.
So finally, as we headed into the afternoon hours, we made it to downtown Culver City. This was the first time that I had been here since the Culver Hotel had re-opened its doors, so I took a cautious peek inside – acting as if I had snuck onto private property. Of course, my trepidation of looking like a pesky tourist didn’t stop me from climbing up the service stairs on the back of the building so I could pose with the Culver Hotel sign (as seen at the top of the posting).
Jimmy had put together a great booklet of Culver City locations that he had used for a walking tour that his Way Out West tent had enjoyed at one of their meetings. We had this in hand as we explored every nook and cranny of the area – enjoying the film locations used in so many Laurel and Hardy silent films such as Putting Pants on Phillip, Leave ‘Em Laughing, We Faw Down, Forty-Five Minutes From Hollywood, Duck Soup, Two Tars, Angora Love, and Bacon Grabbers – to name a handful.
Mural on the back of a hardware store in Culver City
From there we went to the Perfect Day house, the duplex from Big Business, and Jimmy’s new trio of discoveries: the house and street from Me and My Pal, the house from Love ‘Em and Weep, and the mansion from Another Fine Mess. These were all sites that Jimmy and his Dad had discoverd within the past year – completely unearthed to the general public at this point.
We made a very brief stop at the mansion from Wrong Again, which at this point was difficult to see over the high hedges. We were also asked to leave the public sidewalk by one of the security guards for Beauty and the Geek, which was being filmed inside. We scoffed…and balked at being run off public property. Then it was time to make my traditional trek to the Music Box stairs. Considering I hadn’t been there for eight years at this point, I wanted to spend lots of time exploring, looking at areas that we had never studied before. These can be read in an upcoming posting about the stairs themselves.
Back at the steps again after eight years
We then stopped at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum with the hopes of seeing the original Cheers set but were disappointed to find that the museum had already closed. We would find a way to fit it in the next day. So we headed back to the Wiley estate in San Pedro. That evening we met up with Jimmy’s friend Eva and headed for dinner at a restaurant called Islands. This was the first time I got to meet his giggly friend and she was nice and fun to hang out with. We were all ready for dinner by this late hour -although all Eva ended up ordering was soup. Full of food, we retired back to Jimmy’s place and viewed some videos – most notably one of his college class projects, which was quite funny. I’m sure Wings made an appearance as per usual.
The trip will continue with a jaunt to San Diego…
Click here to see the Laurel and Hardy film locations…
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