I just saw this on TCM for the 1st time. Yes, it's a classic comedy. Did anyone recognize the location shots in LA? Several streets and the coffee shop location looked familiar. I think the Southern Pacific RR Station used to be just east of Union Station, near downtown LA.
shareI may rewind the DVR, and see if I can see a street sign around the apartment location. Have stopped paying attention to the film, so I have missed the coffee shop. I'll update if I can find a "Streetview" on Google, of the former.
shareAcross the tracks from the smaller train station that we see, is a sign stating "Burbank Cold Storage." I will assume that it was the old SP Burbank Station, which I believe that I've found, burned down.
shareOK, Burbank Cold Storage was at 10 W. Magnolia Blvd, in Burbank. The "I-Five" now runs right by there, and the Burbank Metrolink Station is located on the destroyed SP station site.
shareThe coffee shop was at the corner of Crenshaw (1500 block) and Venice. The coffee shop site is now a gas station - at the northeast corner of the intersection. As the characters leave, and drive west down Venice...to the LEFT down Crenshaw, you can see an old building which still looks the same today. At the southwest corner of the intersection, where you see a "TWA Coach" billboard in the film, is now a KFC.
shareThanks! You've done some great detective work!
shareI could not figure out the location of the Deco apt bldg, as I saw no signs, and do not recognize any neighboring bldgs. The area looks like lower Beverly Hills, but it could also be Mid-Wilshire? The building exterior for the wedding scene - another mystery to me, but it could be in the Hancock Park area, based on the visible park in the front, and the style of the home/structure. Just guesses. Usually, if I can see just one store name on a building, I can find an historical location via Google. For the train station, I tracked down the neighboring Burbank Cold Storage via a very old cold storage document, listing all cold storage facilities in the US, by state and city.
I am a location manager, and film history degree holder - and a lover of architecture/history - so it's just a lot of fun for me.
Google Maps did initially lead me in the wrong direction with the coffee shop, as it does sometimes. "It insisted" that the 1500 Crenshaw block is quite a distance from its actual location.
Thanks, again. You're a great resource to us film fans!
shareI could not figure out the location of the Deco apt bldgLooks to me like it might be the Mauretania Apartments at 520 N. Rossmore.
Thanks! It has been too long since I saw the film - I don't remember the scene.
shareJust two brief exterior shots about 20 minutes in as MacMurray leaves his apartment with Carlson to go to the wedding.
I understand the building, designed and built in '34 by Milton J. Black, was commissioned by Jack Haley, who occupied the penthouse for about 20 years.
It was interesting to me that you pegged the train station upthread as Burbank, as it had also appeared - along with MacMurray - in Double Indemnity, standing in for Glendale.
Poe! You are...avenged!
Thank you for all of this info! I am a location manager in the industry, and this stuff fascinates me.
shareMe too. I'm always delighted to spot locations I know in films, or to come upon them in reality and recognize them from screen appearances.
I caught that bit of your bio info in an earlier post, and hoped those additional notes would interest you.
Poe! You are...avenged!
Film-noir (and its misdefined cousins) provide the most LA location fun. Some of the current residents would probably enjoy knowing that seventy-five years ago, something filmed in/by their residence...
shareIndeed. And as a bonus, some of them provide what's among the best filmed documentation of the long-gone original Bunker Hill environs.
It's especially fortunate the film industry's been centered in that tear-down-happy city that's in a constant state of reinvention, so that we at least are left with a rich pictorial history of so many places that no longer exist.
Poe! You are...avenged!