Watching Laurel & Hardy films has been such an integral part of my psyche ever since the age eight, that devouring them through sight and sound is just a part of how my pay my respects and reverence to the films. Certainly meeting the folks who worked in them has been one of the great joys in my life. Sadly they are almost all gone now, but coming in at second place as a way to actually become ‘part’ of these films is to visit the places where they shot them. More specifically, to actually stand in the presence of buildings and landmarks that can be seen in the films.
I’ve had grandiose dreams of one day compiling the most extensive book or website to date of these locations, but to date it hasn’t happened. I’ve also held off in sharing many of the locations on this website, in hopes that I might one day combine the visits to each location by location rather than by each visit (as there are usually multiple locations being visited on any given day that I go ‘scouting’ with friends). To put that another way, in the past I’ve intentionally skipped sharing the location visits in the website postings that cover the trip at large. The best example of what I had hoped to do can be seen in my postings about the Music Box steps found here and here.
Now so much time has passed, that it has become difficult to even remember what I’ve skipped, but I’m going to start right her with combining different locations into one posting for sake of finally getting them documented. Incidentally, many if not all of these have been documented in other books and website, but these reflect my own personal visits to the sites. So if that interests you, by all means, read on…
In this case, my friend Jimmy and his father Jimmy were driving around the Culver City area on Monday, July 7, after we had just finished with the Laurel & Hardwood convention the day before. Although we had visited a slew of locations during the convention, most were merely drive-bys from the comfort of a motor coach, so I felt I needed another trip to some to get photos. Others were first time visits altogether based on recently unearthed information.
After lunch, Jimmy and I picked up his father and headed over to Culver City to go down Madison Avenue to take a look at the Hog Wild house location even closer. I had been to this one many times before, and on one visit Jimmy and I had picked out a couple of houses that no one had identified before as far as we knew. Not that there was anything earth shattering about this, as the film had been shot on Madison Avenue, so the locations seen in the film were still on Madison Avenue.
For starters, there was this duplex home with two distinctive porches, that can be seen not only in Hog Wild, but in Towed in a Hole as well as they drive down the road peddling fish. This home is located at 4022 and 4024 Madison.
Driving down Madison in Towed in a Hole. Note the house porches between their heads.
Stan by the same house in Hog Wild
The duplex today
As I was preparing this posting and tracking Stan’s movement down the street and comparing it with Google Maps, I noticed one other home I failed to notice while onsite, the one just a couple of house down, 4034 Madison, which has distinctive skinny arches on the porch, which is still there. I’m including it and the Google Earth shot for the sake of completion.
Note the arched doorways in the upper right corner
The same house and arches today
Next we get close to the intersection of Madison and Braddock where Stan spots a young lady (played by Dorothy Granger, who also played the Hardy maid Tillie in the film) attempting to cross a water puddle and hiking her dress up to the interest of Stan. Although he looks to his right to peek at her, the action was actually taking place on the opposite side of Madison. Two apartment buildings have gone up in the empty lots since then, but the house at 9943 Braddock that can be seen down the road is still there, although now blocked from view from the intersection thanks to a carport right in front of it. This is another house we failed to find, until I came back and began searching Google Earth for it.
The house down Braddock
The same house today
Stan is then almost hit by a car driving along Braddock and he regains his senses as he passes through intersection of Madison and Braddock. There is a house with a distinctive porch overhang seen in the background which still exists at 4068 Madison. The first contemporary photo shows the slope of the roof and the second shows a closer look at the porch roof, which is mostly obscured by trees.
Stan cross through the intersection of Madison and Braddock. Note the porch overhang, and angled roofline.
That same house today (note roof angle)
And the same porch
Moving down to 4175, we come to the lot where the faux house was built where most of the film’s action takes place. I’ve been to this spot more times than I can count, but never got any photos of me with the houses. So that was rectified with the house lot, and the house next door at 4179, plus the houses across the street at 4160 and 4170 that can bee seen from the rooftop shots.
Departing the faux house via ladder
The new house on the same location, and the identical neighbor house
Obvious doubles rolling off the roof toward 4179
4179 today, virtually unchanged
4160 across the street
4160 today
Most likely a dummy, with 4170 across the street
4170 today, with the same palm tree
When Stan’s car drives away accidentally with Ollie perched atop a ladder, they exit the faux-house driveway and head further down Madison, turning right on Farragut. I tried desperately to match up any existing landmarks, but the house that can be seen prominently from Farragut is actually on its intersecting street at 4186 La Salle. It might be worth checking out from an ariel shot, but can’t be seen well from either street. In addition, an extra story was added to the house in 1950. In any case, here are the 1930 views vs. the 2018 views:
Behind the tree is the fake house and 4179, as Stan get ready to turn right on Farragut. (Note the MGM water tower obscured by the palm tree on the right)
The same intersection at Madison and Farragut today
The car has turned onto Farragut here. The house in the background is still there, although now it is a two story. The garage however has been torn down.
Turning right on Farragut from the opposite angle
The Farragut/Madison intersection from the opposite angle today. Note the location of the light pole and fire hydrant. The house is obviously completely different now.
There are plenty more location to be seen during the final minutes of Hog Wild, but we’d have to move to the USC campus, and we didn’t do it that day. Those will have to wait.
What we did do at this point was move along to another Laurel & Hardy film entirely, Helpmates. This one was a biggie, and one I thought would never be located because there are so few clues in the film, but thanks to some amazing detective work from Jim Dallape, he has mapped exactly where many of the films were shot on the Hal Roach Studios backlot, where they often used the same locations in multiple films. There were also several streets just behind the studios that were very sparsely populated and served a perfect places to film. So the house at 8885 Carson Street that can be seen outside the burnt down house frame at the end of Helpmates can actually be seen in numerous other Hal Roach films, including Our Gang’s The Fourth Alarm, Dogs of War, and The Kid from Borneo and Charley Chase’s All Wet. And thankfully, this house still stand, as does the one across the street from it at 8886, which can be seen over Stan’s shoulder as he departs the burnt down remains of Ollie’s house.
The burning house facade. Note the side angle of the house next door (8885)
8885 today, as far to the side as I could get. Note the protruding porch in both photos.
8886 across the street
8886 today
The empty lot on which the house, or what was left of it after Stan burnt it down, is now occupied by a parking lot for the business offices on the adjacent street, Landmark. Sadly the offices built around the area now stand on the location of another house which could be seen in both Laurel & Hardy films Do Detectives Think? and One Good Turn, in addition to several other Roach films. It is assumed that the shot of Ollie answering his door for the postman was actually filmed on this location as well, as the door matches perfectly with the on-location shot of Stan.
The front of the facade
Yep, this is where it stood
Again, I’ll say that it is very fortunate that this house still stands, as it is now the last house on the street before the business buildings begin and street ends abruptly.
Moving along to the L&H film Perfect Day, we visited two locations that I had never been to before. The crux of the film was shot on Vera Street as we all know, but the end of the movie was shot several blocks away on Partencio, now Helms Avenue. Again, the house that can be seen most prominently in this shot is located right next to apartment complexes that have gone up since then, so we can count our blessings one more time that this house still stand. It is located at 3349 Helms, and the house that can be seen in the background is located at 3341.
Sinking into the mudhole in Perfect Day. 3349 is in the foreground, and 3341 is in the background.
With 3349, holding an image from the film
3341 today
This is about where the car sunk into the street
Next stop was a quick visit to the Big Business house on Dunleer in Cheviot Hills. We didn’t even get out of the car to see the main house as it’s been well documented and I’ve seen it and photographed it umpteen times. However there was one new find, I wanted to check out. There’s a scene in the film that shows Tiny Sanford as a cop, silently stewing as he watches the boys and James Finlayson’s tirade of destruction. The film would have you believe that he’s sitting across the street, but it was actually filmed just down the road on the same side of the street as Fin’s house. It’s very difficult to get a photo of the house from the same angle since there is now another house at 10227 Dunleer blocking the house in question at 3049 Queensbury. I took a picture of it head on – which is pretty useless as it can’t be seen like this in the film – but also of the distinctive vent holes in a triangular pattern near the roof. These can clearly be seen in the film and help identify the location.
Tiny Sanford sitting in the entirely wrong location in Big Business. Note the triangular shaped holes at the high point of the house
In lieu of being able to see the whole house, here are the holes
This is the house from the front. The holes would be on the left side of the house.
Switching films again, we moved on to the two distinctive houses seen in The Finishing Touch, the silent short in which Laurel & Hardy attempt to construct a house. The first house is the one used to simulate a hospital is located at 2728 McConnell Drive and is virtually unchanged since the film… although you no longer have to be quiet near it. There’s no way you could see this house form the site of the building location today, but in 1928 the area was much less densely populated.
The hospital in The Finishing Touch
Making all the noise I want today
In fact today you can’t even see the house at 2839 Forrester, which appears to almost be next door to where the boys erect the house. In the film, we are looking at the backside of the house, which is no longer visible, but is distinctive enough that there is no mistake it is the same house.
The back side of 2839, seemingly not far from the house they just built
The same house from the front today
As for the vacant lot where the house was constructed on the corner of Club and Motor, they have put it to much more productive use, and a real house now sits on the location.
The corner lot where they constructed the fake house
The same corner today
Watching the new house get leveled by a truck
The same land and streets today from a slightly different angle
Switching gears slightly, we also stopped by 3510 Glendon Avenue, a house used as young Jerry Tucker’s in the Our Gang film Hi’-Neighbor. We had driven by this one on one of the tours, but I just had to get up close and personal with this little guy. Again, everything around it seems to have been torn down in the name of progress, but as of now this one still stands. I have heard however that it has recently been sold, so sadly it is definitely a like candidate for ‘progress.’
Hi Neighbor!
For a rich kid, their house was awfully small
We come to the end of this installment of Laurel & Hardy locations with this final building that was once located next to a golf course on Washington Avenue in Culver City. It was a fuel station and car garage back when the movie County Hospital was made in 1932 and still serves as the MGM Auto Body Shop. The golf course incidentally is now partially Tellefson Park. Although this site was definitely in the film, I have no reason to believe that Laurel and Hardy themselves were ever here, as it is clearly doubles in this brief shot in the film.
Laurel and Hardy’s doubles go screeching down Washington Blvd.
The same building that can be seen in the background. The jagged “Charlie Brown” decor is still there, although they’re not easy to see since they’re painted the same color
This concluded our roughly two hour tour of fun Laurel and Hardy locations. We headed back to Jimmy’s office so that Big Jimmy could get his car, and then we went back to Jimmy’s house so I could pack up my stuff. Kris and Big Jimmy joined us for a late dinner at the Lighthouse Deli/Cafe where I had a Chorizo Scrambler to get me though the night. We then went on to the airport where I caught my 10:55pm flight. It was non-stop so it wasn’t too bad despite the pipsqueak next to me who blew his nose like the horn from Towed in a Hole. I guess it was fitting enough. It had been a great convention and a great trip overall.
Final meal of the trip with the Wileys
I landed on schedule in Cincinnati on Tuesday morning, July 8, at 6:11am, where Mom picked me up and I returned to reality… and car problems.
2014 will continue with a quick interlude at home before departing on the next big, even bigger, trip…
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