In yesterday’s post featuring documentary footage of Hollywood and environs in 1928, we saw views of a number of long defunct studios. Chief among them was the legendary and beloved Hal Roach Studios, home of Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase and others. The studio was in Culver City and, although Roach stopped producing (for the most part) his own films it served as studio space for a great deal of television work in the 1950s. Alas the heir to the throne, the boringly named Hal Roach Jr., seemed to lack his father’s management skills and somehow the studio found itself in bankruptcy by the early 1960s. Above is an oddly cheerful newsreel depicting the auction (read: firesale) of the Roach studio’s contents prior to its demolition. It is, in fact, an incredibly sad seven minute documentation of the demolition of Hollywood history, with most of the artifacts selling for low prices to buyers who by now are dead and whose descendants likely let them go in estate sales. Who knows where all this museum worthy stuff is now? The reason for the upbeat tone is that the reel is in fact a sales reel for the auction company, Wershow Auctions. The hordes of hungry bargain hunters are presented as a sign of Wershow’s success, not of greed and avarice run rampant. The final sign proudly announcing the studios demolition puts a dark capper on the whole strange affair. Another fine mess, I guess…