The Source Restaurant/Annie Hall Film Location - Plus a New Documentary

The Source Restaurant, TheSourceDoc.com

The Source was a 1970s restaurant located on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip that was run by a group of healthy living, rock'n'rollers part of a hippie cult. Their restaurant served up healthy organic vegetarian cuisine like salads with beats, carrots and raisins and a selection of natural juices. I'm not sure which smelled worse, the food or the hippies (I kid, I kid! ). The Source restaurant is also famously featured in Woody Allen's film Annie Hall (1977). In the film, Allen meets Diane Keaton for lunch and orders "alfalfa sprouts and mashed yeast." 

This restaurant which was once popular with the likes of Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, and John Lennon is featured in a new documentary about The Source cult. The documentary is now playing at The Cinefamily theatre in Los Angeles (as well as a few other cities). Theaters in additional cities will be showing the documentary later this month. Check out the documentary website at TheSourceDoc.com to see if this groovy film is playing near you.

Allen and Keaton leave The Source. Annie Hall (1977)

Cabo Cantina, 8301 Sunset Boulevard. 

The site of The Source is now the location for a Mexican restaurant and bar called Cabo Cantina. The building is still recognizable from the outside with the exception that the outside seating area has been covered. 

In Annie Hall, when Allen leaves the restaurant, being the New Yorker that he is and unable to drive a car, he smashes into both the restaurant and several cars while backing out.

Allen crashes his car in The Source parking lot.

The Source/Cabo Cantina parking lot. 

Allen chooses to sit at the restaurant's outside patio. In the background we see the Golden Crest Hotel. That is today the site of the fashionable The Standard hotel.

Allen sits outside at The Source. Annie Hall

The Standard Hotel in the background, formerly Golden Crest Hotel.

If it turns out this documentary won't be coming to a city near you, the documentary website is already selling the DVD, a digital download, soundtrack, T-Shirts and other merchandise. 

Below is a trailer for the film.

Does anyone have any memories of eating at The Source?

Annie Hall screenshots (c) MGM/UA Home Entertainment, contemporary images (c) 2013 Google.

The Desperate Hours (1955) - Film Locations

Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March

Two of the greatest actors of Hollywood's golden era, Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March, square off in the film The Desperate Hours (1955). Bogart is an escaped convict on the run. March is a suburban family man. The two butt heads when Bogart, with a couple fellow escapees, hold March and his family hostage in their Indianapolis home. Bogart is hiding out until he can collect his getaway money and he isn't going to let anyone interfere with collecting his dough. March strategizes a way to get out of his predicament and will do whatever it takes to protect his family. The tension that Bogart and March create in this standoff is absolutely thrilling!

Although the home where March and his family live is supposed to be in Indianapolis, it is actually a building that once stood on the Universal Studios Hollywood Colonial Street backlot. The home, known as the "Paramount House," was originally built on the Universal lot by Paramount specifically for The Desperate Hours. After the film, the house stayed and would be used again numerous times in other films and for television. The house has also appeared in the films All That Heaven Allows (1955), The Shaggy Dog (1959) and Send Me No Flowers (1964) and TV shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Adam 12, but it is likely most recognizable as the house from Leave it to Beaver. Beginning in season 3, when the Leave it to Beaver show moved from the old Republic Studios lot (now CBS Studio Center) to Universal, the Cleaver family settled into the former Paramount House.

Click images to see larger.

The Paramount House as it appears in The Desperate Hours.

The Paramount House April 2010. Photo (c) theStudioTour.com

The Cleaver family in front of the Paramount House.

The Paramount House would sit on Universal's Colonial Street backlot until 1989. When production started on the 1989 film, The Burbs, the Paramount House was moved to another area of the Universal lot above Falls Lake to make room for new facades.

Another view of Universal's Colonial Street. The Desperate Hours.

The same view of Colonial Street as seen in Leave it to Beaver.

The "Keller House" on Colonial Street as seen in The Desperate Hours.

The "Keller House" as seen in Leave it to Beaver.

The Desperate Hours is an exciting film directed by William Wyler. In addition to Bogart and March, the film also stars Arthur Kennedy, Martha Scott, Dewey Martin, Gig Young, and Alan Reed (best known as the voice of Fred Flintstone). The Desperate Hours is available on DVD.

For more information visit the retroweb.com site dedicated to Leave It To Beaver. This page is filled with images of Colonial Street and it's history involving the Cleaver family. Also check out theStudioTour.com, another great site loaded with information on Colonial Street (as well as other film studios).

Belles on Their Toes (1952) - Film Locations

Belles on Their Toes (1952)

In less than two months, Santa Monica High School seniors will be participating in their graduation ceremony at the Memorial Greek Amphitheatre located on the campus. This is the same theatre in which Myrna Loy, in the film Belles on Their Toes (1952), joyously watched her youngest daughter's graduation ceremony. Although there have been some dramatic changes to the theatre during the last 61 years since the film was made, the Memorial Greek Amphitheatre is still very recognizable.

Belles on Their Toes is the sequel to the original Cheaper By the Dozen. In Belles, Loy, the mother of twelve children, continues to look after her family, but now without the help of her husband who had passed away at the end of the first film. You would expect the film to focus on Loy and the difficulties of a single woman raising twelve kids, but instead the film is centered more on the teenage romances of the older daughters. The film begins with Loy, done up in makeup to appear older, attending the graduation ceremony of her last child and then the story jumps back in time to show events preceding the graduation.

Note: Click images to see larger.

Graduates walk the steps of the Memorial Greek Amphitheatre at Santa Monica High School in the film Belles on Their Toes.

A contemporary view of the Memorial Greek Amphitheatre at Santa Monica High School. Photo from Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

Memorial Greek Amphitheatre as it appears in Belles on Their Toes.

The outdoor Greek style amphitheatre was originally built in 1921 to honor Santa Monicans that had served in World War I. Plaques on the walls of the amphitheatre listed all of the Santa Monicans that had served in the war. In the 1950s, a second level was added to the Greek, which you will notice by looking at the comparison of the screenshot and contemporary images below. Other additions to the theatre since it first opened in 1921 include plaques honoring Santa Monicans who have served in every major military conflict, as well as one for a student who was killed because of gang violence in the early 2000s. The Memorial Greek Amphitheatre first hosted a graduation ceremony in 1921 and has every year since.

The Memorial Greek Amphitheatre in Belles on Their Toes.

Contemporary view of the Memorial Greek Amphitheatre in Santa Monica.

Myrna Loy on the steps of the Santa Monica High School Memorial Greek Amphitheatre as seen in Belles on Their Toes.

Most of the scenes in the film were shot on the 20th Century Fox Studios lot, with the exception of the graduation scene which was filmed on location at Santa Monica High School, and another scene that was filmed on location at Paradise Cove in Malibu. In the scene below the kids spend a day at the beach and two of the teenage daughters try flirting with the local boys. Minus the vintage bathing suits and umbrellas, this stretch of coastline is pretty much the same quiet beach area.

Paradise Cove, Malibu, Ca as seen in Belles on Their Toes.

Paradise Cove Pier, Malibu, Ca. Photo: Wikimedia.org

Don't you just love those bathing suits?

Paradise Cove, Malibu as seen in Belles on Their Toes.

Photo from LA Observed. Paradise Cove Pier

In addition to Myrna Loy, the Belles on Their Toes cast includes Jeanne Crain, Debra Paget, Jeffrey Hunter, Edward Arnold, Hoagy Carmichael, and Verna Felton who voiced many Disney characters. Belles on Their Toes was directed by Henry Levin. The film is available on DVD and can also be rented through ClassicFlix.