My last two posts have shown Los Angeles in the 1970s, a place enshrouded by smog and filled with traffic. Now lets go back thirty years earlier to the late 1940s and take a nice, slow, boring (but fascinating at the same time) drive around Sherman Oaks, in the San Fernando Valley. The camera is mounted on the front of a car which smoothly glides around the sparse, sunny, smogless and car-light area. The Valley was largely developed post World War 2–neighborhoods like this one were generally orange or walnut groves prior to the post-war building boom. My guess is that the footage was shot as background stock footage for a studio to use as rear projection–though that only works if its a rear or side view. So what are we to do with the camera mounted on the hood moving forward? Well, POV shots I suppose. But what kind of movie has POV shots of the empty new valley neighborhood? A BORING one would be the only possible answer. Below I’ve reprinted a geographic guide as to where we are in the video, provided by a helpful YouTube watcher named DanMan 869. Thanks buddy.

For at least the first half of the video, I believe this is being filmed on Greenleaf Street in Sherman Oaks as it passes by Sherman Oaks Elementary School (now SO Charter School), turns around at Sepulveda Boulevard, and then heads back east on Greenleaf again. Not sure if it continues on Greenleaf after passing the school again. Using Google and maps, I confirmed where Valley Oaks Cleaners was once located (shown in the distance on Sepulveda as the camera car/truck turned around) and then was able to match up a unique house on Greenleaf shown in the film that is still there.