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Old Posted Sep 1, 2009, 4:42 AM
citywatch citywatch is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2002
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality View Post
Below is a great noir photo.
Looking north on Vine toward Sunset and Vine.
Notice NBC Radio City Studios on the right.


usc digital archives
That's an amazing pic, since I've never before seen a shot of hollywood from that angle, or such a complete shot of that hood at night, with all the neon lit up.

speaking of which, the old bendix sign was dark for decades & was relit only within the past 3 or 4 yrs. The bendix corp obviously no longer occupies the bldg underneath the sign, just as the bldg under the neon of the nearby eastern columbia sign----also relit within the past few yrs----no longer is the same named dept store of over 60 yrs ago.

All these real LA noir scenes, esp of crime locations, make me think of mood music like this, from a classic movie that recreated early 20th century LA noir in 1974.

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.

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