Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 5022638)

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TL...o/s640/900.jpgCooper, Lynch and Kurtz: West Adams/Bison Archives
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TL...12/900door.jpgCooper, Lynch and Kurtz: West Adams/Bison Archives
900 West Adams, ca. 1940. The pictures above were taken a
few years before The Curse of the Cat People was filmed.


I finally had the chance to watch The Curse of the Cat People again. When I've seen it before I didn't know that Mrs. Farren's house once stood at 900 West Adams, which gsjansen, JeffDiego, myself and maybe others have written of here previously. The film is actually much more interesting than I remembered it, and not just because of the house. But for the purposes of this forum I'll talk about the spooky old Waters/Farren place... here are a couple of obsessive observations. As Amy is following her friends around the Adams/Portland corner of the house in one particularly evocative scene, there is a terrific sense if Victorian West Adams--the great stone and iron fence that JeffDiego mentioned, the brooding turretted house, the lush vegetation. In the movie, trailing potted plants cover the "900" inscribed on each gatepost (probably on purpose--although the street number is seen above the door; see pics here), and you can see the adjacent Christian Science church's balustrade in these scenes, still there today. There are other quick exterior establishing shots of the house that look more like a painting that is only a close approximation of the real house. Closeups of the real front door are seen, with characters entering the actual house, though interiors are apparently studio sets--decorators did a good job of replicating most of the details of the actual house's front doors on these sets. JeffDiego mentioned that he thought the scenes of the unseen Mrs. Farren talking to Amy from a high window appear to have been filmed at another location-- this definitely looks to me to have been the carriage house (which still stands) right behind the main house. What you can see of the carriage house and its small tower in the movie match what is visible from the street--at least in Google Street View shots, that is (see prior posts of the carriage house, which also show remnants of the stone-and-iron fence). OK--this is probably way more detail than you ever wanted to know about The Curse of the Cat People, but I think its 1944 release date and mysterious look and feel, and the starring role of a great old L.A. house (even if it's supposed to be in Tarrytown, N.Y.), make it part of noir-era Los Angeles if not really noir is the usual sense. Btw--I wonder if the producers of The Addams Family remembered Curse when they were searching for a "haunted" house for the '60s tv series, but, finding 900 West Adams gone, then discovered 21 Chester Place?

http://www.afi.com/wise/films/curse_...t_people01.jpgAmerican Film Institute
Mrs. Farren entertaining Amy at home. Notice the cat eating the canary.

Originally Posted by JeffDiego (Post 5027419)

Savored every word of your musings on "The Curse of the Cat People," GW.
And...your talent for finding these amazing photos.
Very interesting that you are familiar enough with the remaining carriage house at 900 West Adams to identify it as the likely location of the mysterious tower window in the movie.
Incidentally, I meant to ask if anyone knows the identity/location of the Victorian mansion with massive twin Palm Trees in the original William Castle movie "13 Ghosts?"
I checked out the trailer on youtube, and there is close-up panning shot of the front of the Waters house! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smki4...eature=related If this link doesn't work, go to youtube and type in 13 ghosts (1960) trailer.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 5027929)

Do either of you know any details of a castle-like house above Sunset somewhere in the vicinity of Sweetzer?
I believe it's still there although hidden by trees and bushes.



OK....I just found some information.

I just googled sweetzer and castle and found this link.
http://movieland.wordpress.com/2007/...aculas-castle/

The photos are terrible. :(
Do you have any photos of this house GW?

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 5027851)

:previous:

Jeff: I will have to check out 13 Ghosts to see if we can find the other house in the movie--but that is indeed the Waters house in the Youtube clip. Another spooky appearance in the clip is none other than the Wicked Witch herself, Margaret Hamilton. She appears for a second--wasn't sure at first, but I checked the cast and yep, she's one of the stars. In fact, she may be the biggest, though also starring are Martin Milner, who was doing Route 66 on tv that same year, and Rosemary DeCamp--who I was familiar enough with growing up but have no idea now if she was in movies or was a singer or what. Anyway, quite a mixed bag of players in 13 Ghosts! As for the Waters carriage house--the vents in the tower are a big clue--I think it was filmed in Curse with the camera low to the ground to give it some height, since the rear building was quite a bit shorter than the main house.

PS Now you've got me wondering when the Waters house was demolished--for some reason I assumed it was in the '40s, when so many Victorians went, but if 13 Ghosts was shot in '59 or '60... of course maybe the footage in the Youtube clip was old...

Originally Posted by JeffDiego (Post 5028075)

Richard Lamparski, author of the famous "Whatever Became of?" books and super-authority on old Hollywood, devotes a page in his book "Lamparski's Hidden Hollywood" to "The Castle of the Fairy Lady," which was the name given to the house (originally called Mount Kalmia) by its owner, Mrs. Hersee Moody Carson. She was a devout Christian who held large parties at her house for children, mostly orphans and cripples, and they referred to her as The Fairy Lady. The dessert at these parties was always a huge angel-food cake shaped and decorated as the Holy Bible.
There is an excellent photo of the house in 1940 in Lamparski's book.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 5029097)

Yesterday, I came across these three photos for sale on ebay.
The first one is especially great.



http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/6...noldhylen2.jpg
ebay


http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7...noldhylen1.jpg
ebay



http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/7...noldhylen3.jpg
ebay