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Old Posted Sep 23, 2010, 1:16 AM
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GaylordWilshire GaylordWilshire is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: NYC
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from Desperate to Desperate

I feel I must somehow get a noir angle into this TV-architecture theme I've got going here. How about 1955's The Desperate Hours, starring Humphrey Bogart? If you squint, maybe that movie can been seen as sort of a suburban noir...maybe? Well, it's in black and white. Anyway, it turns out that prior to The Munsters, creators Mosher and Connolly had done Leave It to Beaver--which, beginning a season or two into the series, used the same Universal backlot house that was in The Desperate Hours:

retrowebdotcom


retrowebdotcom


This house apparently went on to be used in Marcus Welby MD, several other TV series and movies, was altered several times, and is supposedly today on Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives. It's actually hard to tell from the many and various descriptions on the web if the current house is even the same structure or merely resembles the building in The Desperate Hours, but the most interesting thing I found in poking around on the web is that some claim that Leave It to Beaver was filmed using an actual house at 1727 Buckingham Road in Los Angeles--not true. Even still, it is interesting to speculate that the backlot house may have been modeled on this Lafayette Square home. It's hard to see behind all the vegetation, but the semi-dormer windows, the lower brick facade, and the bay window (on the left rather than the right in the set house) do make you wonder if the Desperate Hours set designer lived there or nearby....

Google Street View


The house on Wisteria Lane--the dormers are different, and the proportions seem so too--but it is still down the street from the Munster mansion:


Last edited by GaylordWilshire; Dec 18, 2010 at 12:15 AM.
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