Introduction
Kicking off a new year of filming locations then and now videos, this month I've got four classic comedy movies lined up for our tour around the Los Angeles area.
Our first stop is in the Palms neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles where we meet up with the Our Gang / The Little Rascals kids in one of their last silent movies, Cat, Dog and Company from 1929. We then head east of Downtown Los Angeles to the Boyle Heights neighborhood for a visit to a then-beautiful park where Laurel and Hardy end up causing a near riot, in Men O'War, also filmed in 1929.
Continuing our filming locations then and now tour, it's off to a quiet street in Hollywood where The Three Stooges are looking for a missing dog in their 1939 comedy Calling All Curs.
This month's video tour of filming locations finishes up with a 1924 Charley Chase short movie, All Wet, filmed on a very muddy street in Culver City, California.
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Cat, Dog and Co. (1929)
The Plot
One of the last silent Our Gang / The Little Rascals movies has the Gang racing their pet-powered dragsters down the neighborhood streets. A lady (Hedda Hopper!) from the local "Be Kind To Animals Society" spots the Gang and convinces them that they shouldn't be using their pets to power their racing vehicles and to spread the word that all animals need to be treated kindly.
A Familiar Block Used As Filming Location
Once again for a Little Rascals movie, the locations used for filming are the same few blocks centered around the intersection of Motor Avenue and Woodbine Street in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles. If you've been watching the Our Gang / The Little Rascals films featured on this site, you'll immediately recognize the filming locations, especially the building at 3392 Motor Avenue which appears in over a dozen of the films in the series.
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Laurel and Hardy - Men O'War (1929)
The Plot
An early "talkie" from Laurel and Hardy, this film has the boys as sailors on shore leave spending a day in the park. They encounter two lovely young ladies and attempt to treat them to a fun afternoon in the park, with a predictably disastrous outcome!
A Filming Location Nearly Buried Under A Freeway
Like The Three Stooges movie Calling All Curs (covered in the next blog entry below), the location used in this movie was almost lost when the city was planning a new freeway route. As things turned out, the route of the I-5 freeway just slices through a tiny corner of the Hollenbeck Park - the location used as the filming location for this Laurel and Hardy movie. The configuration of the park today very closely matches what Laurel and Hardy captured on film in 1929, though many of the decorative trees and shrubs have been removed.
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Laurel and Hardy - Men O'War - Filming Locations - Quick Preview Video
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The Three Stooges - Calling All Curs (1939)
The Plot
In this classic comedy movie short, The Three Stooges are (somehow) veterinarians running their own pet hospital. A rich lady brings in her dog - Garcon - for a surgery. The surgery is a success (!) but while the dog is recuperating, two dognappers steal Garcon and hold him for ransom.
A Filming Location From 1939 In Plain Sight Today
Most of this film was shot on the Columbia Pictures lot at Sunset Blvd and North Gower Street on a soundstage, but there is a scene where the Stooges go out looking for Garcon. This movie location shown in this video and miraculously dodged demolition in the late 1940s when the 101 Freeway was built right in back of the filming site! The building seen in the film is still with us at 5600 Fernwood Avenue, unchanged over all these decades.
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The Three Stooges - Calling All Curs - Filming Locations - Quick Preview Video
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The Three Stooges - Calling All Curs - Complete Filming Locations Video
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Charley Chase - All Wet (1924)
The Plot
Charley Chase is on his way to the train station when he comes upon a fellow motorist stuck in the mud. Charley graciously helps tow him out but then CHARLEY ends up stuck in the mud.
Filming Location - The Birth Of A Neighborhood
This movie produced by the Hal Roach Studios was filmed on location in the neighborhood just south of the studio. Like the Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie Dogs Of War (also covered on this site and filmed a year earlier on the same street), we get a great view of a Culver City neighborhood in its earliest days, with houses on the 8800 block of Carson Street under construction and no trees lining the street.
This video gives a great contrast between the earliest days of the neighborhood and how it has evolved 100 years later.
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Charley Chase - All Wet - Filming Locations - Quick Preview Video
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Charley Chase - All Wet - Filming Locations Then and Now - Complete Documentary Video
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In case you missed it: My December 2024 featured filming locations then and now videos blog entry.
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