Buster Keaton's first picture with MGM and my personal favorite of his MGM films is, The Cameraman. MGM also thought this was a pretty good film. They believed it was the perfect comedy and would use it as an example to show all their other directors and producers under contract.
The film is set in New York City and was shot in New York, Hollywood and Venice. Below are some of the locations that were shot in Hollywood.
Above is the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. That's the firetruck rounding the corner that Buster Keaton chases and then hops aboard.
This is how the southeast corner of Hollywood and Vine appears today. The building is pretty much the same. If you look to the right of the image you can see a building under construction. That's a new W hotel being built on the former site of the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant. Read my earlier post to learn more about that.
The firetruck then turns up Cahuenga Boulevard. The next two screenshots and the following photo show how the street appears in the film and how it looks today.
1612 Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood
1616 Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood
1616 Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood
Cahuenga Boulevard as it appears today.
From Cahuenga the firtruck turns left into a firehouse. The firehouse no longer exists but the building in the background as Buster pulls into the firehouse is still standing. Below is a picture of the building in the background.
If you watch the first 2 minutes of this YouTube video you can see all of these locations as they appear in the film.
One of my favorite films. Nice detective work.
ReplyDeleteooOoh! you're 2nd buster post- yahoo! it's fabulous- great job cutie! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures. You've got a really cool blog. I really like it here.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I was stalking the locations for Paper Moon on Google street view recently. Great blog!
ReplyDeleteYour new follower,
Mandy
Nestled in Nostalgia
Hi Mandy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind comment and for following. PAPER MOON is one of my faves!
Best,
Robby