Here’s a real weirdie. Back in the 1950s a real estate broker named Al Herd, who apparently specialized in Beverly Hills properties, made a promotional film consisting of shots of him showing two very 50s-esque youngish ladies various houses he was representing. Or was the film actually ever really made? From the look of the above sound-free reel, it appears that footage was shot but possibly never edited. Certainly the odd assortment of shots and lack of any attempt at continuity suggest that these are unedited dailies that probably never found an actual final form. Was Mr. Herd the auteur behind this production? And who exactly forgot to press the little sound button, rendering the film mute and depriving us, sixty-plus years later, of hearing what the prattling pitch of a real estate agent of the past sounded like? Still, there are nice period shots of very ‘flats’ style BH houses, some canyon ranch houses and a couple of awfully large pools. Strangely, even in black and white LA then looks like LA now–scrubby, mephitic, debilitating. And that’s in the good neighborhood…