HOLLYWOOD, 1928

Here is a fascinating travelogue reel showing Hollywood and environs in 1928 (not 1929 as the YouTube poster has labeled it). I date it as late summer/early winter ’28 as the two movies we see advertised, ‘Four Rooms’ and ‘The Man Who Laughs’, were released in August and November of that year respectively. The photographer, one W.F.Sullivan, helpfully gives his address ( 1442 N. Highland Ave.) underneath his credit, presumably in case you wanted to hire him after seeing this reel. This tells us that this was an independently produced film, probably sold via mail order, designed to show off the sights of the glamorous, mysterious town which had not yet become a tourist destination. Sullivan takes his camera high up in buildings to give us aerial views of Hollywood Blvd., then free of traffic but oddly similar to the Hollywood Blvd. of today (albeit cleaner). This is because so many of the buildings pictured here are still standing, having escaped the redevelopment boom of the 1960s due to the area having become crappy and crime-ridden. We see the hills over Hollywood, dotted with houses most of which are probably still there, views of the exteriors of the major theaters–Grauman’s Chinese and the Egyptian–the Hollywood Athletic Club and some astonishing views of the now gone Hollywood Dam. We see Lake Hollywood, which is still there but without the incredible road around it that we see here. There’s footage of an evening movie premiere–my guess is that Sullivan didn’t shoot this stuff bur likely purchased the footage or perhaps even stole it–and then we get to the real stuff; views of the studios both interiors and exteriors. The shots of the movie sets are particularly fascinating. The directors really do look like the director in ‘Singing In The Rain’, with berets, megaphones and those funny pants that I don’t know the name of. The camera is still being handcranked–I don’t believe they became motorized until sound was firmly in place and if I’m right and this was photographed in 1928 (which I am and it was) production of silent films was still outpacing early talkie efforts. There’s footage of the Hollywood Bowl at night as well. And then at the end we get a real treat; a view of the Our Gang kids of that era on the set pretending to be the director and crew. Pete the Dog, complete with circle around his left eye, looks on with ill-concealed boredom. WARNING: the music track that’s been added to this marvelous reel is wholly irrelevant–it consists of some solo barroom piano which then inexplicably shifts to some dreadful rockabilly stuff. Below I’ve provided a much better option–a playlist of recordings of the great Jean Goldkette orchestra of the era. Simply mute the above video, hit play on the below video and enjoy a time capsule trip to a very different time, but an oddly similar place.

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