noirish Los Angeles

[ScottyB]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

This Royal Room photo may have solved a mystery of sorts...










So, the YAL we see in the b&w photo I posted matches the YAL design in the color photo. So I'd say it's definitely the Royal Room neon. And the different design in the permit that Flyingwedge mentions could be for one of the other two Royal Room signs on the building; the front sign and the blade sign.

However, that doesn't explain why it doesn't look right in the color photo. Is it possible that the neon sign was being dismantled? How long did the Royal Room last? The color photo is from 1959 (Some Like It Hot was playing.) If the sign was being dismantled, would it still be lit up if that truck is hauling it away on a steel frame of some sort? Or is it some kind of optical illusion?

I think the illusion is due to the arced baseline of the word "ROYAL" on the original sign. Very effective! It looks like "ROOM" became "SCOT" in the color photo.

[Martin Pal]

Originally Posted by Flyingwedge

Good eye, MP. The reason the sign looks different in the color photo may be because by that time the Royal Room had become
the Royal Scot. I think I can just barely see SCOT on the blade sign (to the right of the pink vertical line), and below the big orange
Y in YAL on Las Palmas we don't see ROOM as in your b/w photo, but three yellow letters, with the last one a T (as in SCOT ).
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The Royal Room, which opened April 6, 1948, appears to have gone out of business in 1958 or 1959, following at least two
tragedies (the fire was December 6, 1957):
March 28, 1958, Los Angeles Examiner @ Newspapers.com
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There's an interior photo of the fire in this post:
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...ostcount=56838

Love the newspaper article mentioning Frankie Darro as the new bar manager. He moved on to work at the Raincheck Room on Santa Monica Blvd. in the same or similar capacity!

Thanks, Flyingwedge, first I've heard of The Royal Scot. Good use of the previous sign! Interesting that such a huge neon sign has not been seen in Hollywood Blvd. photos before.

Originally Posted by ScottyB

I think the illusion is due to the arced baseline of the word "ROYAL" on the original sign. Very effective! It looks like "ROOM" became "SCOT" in the color photo.
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That had not occurred to me, thanks ScottyB!

[Martin Pal]

Since we're discussing 6700 Hollywood Blvd., here's what that corner looked like a few decades earlier:

HollywoodPhotographsSCMFT

1905 SW corner of Hollywood Blvd. & Las Palmas Ave.

[Bristolian]

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

.
Lastly here is an amazing panorama of a dinner dance at the Biltmore Hotel in 1940.


movieposters

Do any of you fine noirishers recognize anyone?






For search purposes - Warner Club - Sixth Annual Dinner Dance - Biltmore Bowl - Los Angeles - February 17, 1940

I don't recognize anyone but I can't look at these type of photos without thinking of The Shining. Jack Torrance are you in there somewhere?

[ethereal_reality]

.

There's one in every crowd.



detail












Did you all know Jane Wyman was a blonde in the early days of her acting career?





I think this might be her. .. She would have been 23 years old in 1940.


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Ms. Wyman won the Academy Award (Best Actress) for Johnny Belinda in 1948.



Toby Wing's career was mostly during the 1930s. ..Her last film was Sweethearts in 1938.
.

[Scott Charles]

Originally Posted by Bristolian

I don't recognize anyone but I can't look at these type of photos without thinking of The Shining. Jack Torrance are you in there somewhere?

I thought the exact same thing!