Quote:
Originally Posted by citywatch
Real or fictional, images of old LA always make me sort of nostalgic, but also melancholy & kind of blue, yet also sentimental about a bygone era placed against the backdrop of a mediterranean/spanish, palmtree climate.
Coincidentally enough, the movie "set during a heat wave in 1930s Los Angeles, whose residents are suffering from a water shortage" is a case of life imitating art right now, since we're going through a heatwave, with major fires in the local mountains, & a drought.
FWIW, if a filmmaker has to recreate noir, he may overlook some gaps in authenticity. I recall the first time I saw the movie chinatown I noticed one scene filmed in the alley of the biltmore hotel in DTLA, supposedly occurring during the 1930s. Only problem is the camera also caught a glimpse of a bldg in the background, the highrise at 611 west 6th St, built in the 1960s.
 |
"Chinatown"-- great film! But yeah, often when you see films set in an earlier era in LA, there will be anachronisms (I noticed this last year when I saw "Changeling"). In fact, I'm not sure what part of the 1930s it's supposed to be set (I've always assumed mid-1930s, judging by the fashions and cars), but Old Chinatown was already at that point being torn down for Union Station, which opened in 1939. The current Chinatown that exists is a later, planned iteration, which was actually LA's original Little Italy. Hence the old, abandoned Little Joe's restaurant building that still exists, and the Italian Center and Italian Catholic Church, both on north Broadway.