Chimney Sweep

The L.A. Alley That is a Delicate Silent-Movie Landmark

Silent film star Buster Keaton made films by letting places speak to him. While Keaton is most often remembered for his infamous imperturbability – his “Big Stone Face” never saw the chaos around him – stands out in many of his films nearing their 100th. His approach to screenwriting has been a beginning and an end to plan without worrying about what happened in between. He was inspired by a site; Gags arose from the details of the place.

Keaton and his fellow stars Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd all played with space in a way that makes it uniquely rewarding to find, visit, and study their filming locations. This is why film historian John Bengtson’s project to locate and remember the places where this silent comedy triumvirate filmed is particularly instructive.

Bengtson’s most incredible discovery – a seemingly nondescript T-shaped alley in the heart of Hollywood – appears in numerous silent films, including three on the National Film Registry, films kept by the Library of Congress for cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.

The alley is the setting for one of Keaton’s most memorable stunts in the 1922 film Cops. He is running down the alley with a horde of cops who are insanely pursued. When he reaches the end, he stops in the street and looks back at the clumsy mob stumbling after him. A car drives past and Keaton holds on and flies behind the vehicle from the off. It’s pretty easy compared to some of his more elaborate stunts – but it became one of his most iconic spectacles.

Keaton flees the alley in <em>police officers</em>, and the same place that Bengtson mapped almost 90 years later, in 2011. “width =” auto “data-kind =” article-image “id =” article-image-82120 “src =” https: // assets.atlasobscura .com / article_images / lg / 82120 / image.jpg “/> Keaton fleeing the alley in Cops, and the same place that Bengtson photographed almost 90 years later, in 2011. <span class=Public domain; Courtesy John Bengtson

The place where Chaplin finds the eponymous child, whom he adopted in his 1921 masterpiece The Kid, is just a stone’s throw from where the cops were chasing Keaton. Harold Lloyd also sneaks through the alley to sneak late to work with his safety load! (1923). These three films on the National Film Registry are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to films made in the alley. It also appears in two other Keaton short films – Neighbors (1920) and My Wife’s Relations (1922) -. Groundbreaking director Lois Weber hit the boys straight to the point and shot Where are my children? in the alley in 1916, the same year Cleo Madison set up Eleanor’s Catch there. It also appeared in the series The Purple Mask (1917), the Al Christie comedies Hubby’s Night Out (1917) and All Jazzed Up (1920), Gale Henry’s The Detectress (1919), a star vehicle for the illusionist Harry Houdini called The. on Grim Game (1919), Ben Turpin’s Ten Dollars or Ten Days (1924) and a 1925 newspaper drama, The Last Edition.

As a filming location, the alley had a lot in its favor. Since it runs east to west, it was well lit and fairly quiet all day, says Bengtson. And at a time when studios were expanding, much of Hollywood was still orchards, open lots, or vacant fields; There weren’t many urban looking intersections to choose from. For a while, he adds, “it was essentially the only street in town”.

The alley also appears in <em>Security last!</em>, with Harold Lloyd. “width =” auto “data-kind =” article-image “id =” article-image-82122 “src =” https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/82122/image.  jpg “/> Die Gasse also appears in Safety Last! with Harold Lloyd. <span class=Courtesy John Bengtson / Public Domain

Bengtson – whose books Silent Echoes, Silent Traces and Silent Visions the Steps of Keaton, Chaplin and was filmed in San Francisco, not far from his place of residence.

When Bengtson visited the Daydreams locations, he found that things were very different. A scene near Lombard Street – famous today for its eight hairpin turns – had been filmed before construction began, so those attributes didn’t yet exist. “I was blown away because I realized that there was actually some history going on,” says Bengtson. “It’s not just the same place then and now.” The film froze a place in time while the real spaces developed, changed and aged.

Not long after this initial discovery, Bengtson was searching vintage photos of Los Angeles in an archive when he noticed a photo taken near the intersection of Hollywood and Cahuenga Boulevards. In the photo there was an alley south of the intersection with some signs on either side of the entrance. He immediately recognized it as the setting for Keaton’s cops autograb stunt. When Bengtson was finally able to visit the alley months later to see if it was still there, he found that it looked much the same and that it was also the location of another scene from cops where Keaton’s hand is bitten by one Dog. This sequence was filmed at the other end of the top of the “T” where the alley meets Cosmo Street.

Before Bengtson’s rediscovery of the site and his work on cataloging the silent films they used (which he recorded in his books and continues to describe on his blog Silent Locations), the alley was gradually fading from the collective mind. Although it appears in Tim Burton’s 1994 film Ed Wood, Bengtson believes it is unlikely that Burton knew the alley’s place in cinema history. “In my opinion, this was not an homage, just a functional, real Hollywood location,” he says.

EaCa Alley, photographed in 2013. It was reinterpreted a little during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alissa Walker / CC by-SA 2.0

If Bengtson has his way, however, there will be a tribute to the place: he wants the city to celebrate history by naming part of the Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd Alley passage. He shared it on his blog, where he offers free PDF guides for DIY tours of the nearby filming locations, and recently produced a video about the alley that is currently banned as an outdoor dining area during COVID-19, but is going today mostly flanked by chic restaurants, cozy lofts and office space. He emphasizes that he does not want to rename the longer north-south section that runs parallel to Cahuenga Boulevard. This part already has a name – East Cahuenga Alley (or EaCa Alley for short) – and has become a hip hangout thanks to the revitalization by the EaCa Alley Association.

However, the vertical part of the alley is currently nameless. Much like the Music Box Steps in Silverlake, christened for their appearance in the 1932 Laurel and Hardy short film The Music Box, Bengtson wants film history to show up on the map.

“I can absolutely guarantee that nowhere are three of the greatest stars and three of their most important films to be found in one place.”

David Gadja, president of the EaCa Alley Association, is thrilled with Bengtson’s proposal and says he and his colleagues are thrilled with the opportunity to have the top east-west portion of the alley named in homage to Chaplin, Keaton. and Lloyd. ”Gadja and Bengtson have maintained a dialogue, but ultimately it’s not up to them. Urban bureaucracy is often labyrinthine, so it’s hard to say what the best way to go, especially in the midst of a global pandemic when officials have so much else to worry about. For now, Bengtson’s goal is to get the word wide and wide in the hope that the proposal will find widespread support. “Once enough people know about the alley, the right people will know about the alley, and once the right people know about the alley, it will happen,” he says.

He argues convincingly that there is no better place to honor Hollywood in its creation. There are a few other places where Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd’s paths crossed – on a cliff in Santa Monica and at a long-ruined Pasadena train station – but this place is special. “I can absolutely guarantee that nowhere are three of the biggest stars and three of their most important films in one place,” says Bengtson. “That’s absolutely two or three layers above anything I’ve ever found.”

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button