Issue:
Issue Summer 2007
Hollywood is Film Noir.
Shadowy forms lurk in the darkness as tires creep across wet asphalt. Flashbacks, low angles and a dreamlike voiceover ooze desperation in a world where nothing is what it appears to be.
If you have ever been in this situation you are either at an American Cinematheque
film noir festival at the Egyptian Theatre or walking the steep incline of Ivar Street
where a flickering neon sign welcomes you to the Alto-Nido. It is in this 1940’s apartment
building where a struggling writer (William Holden) pecked at his typewriter
before he became aging screen siren, Gloria Swanson’s, playboy lover and moved into
her decrepit mansion in the classic 1950’s film,
Sunset Boulevard.
We are, after all, in Hollywood and everything here lives and breathes the movies.
That is why this dream factory of creative expression has always drawn actors, writers,
artists, and musicians. It is a town where a film extra with one line of dialogue
can be called a movie star (from a scene in
Day of the Locust
) and a place where terms
like dumb blonde, booze it up, and criminally handsome became popular vernacular of
the 1930’s. When pulp fiction writers like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett
moved out west they turned their crime novels into screenplays and became founding
stars of a new genre of filmmaking called film noir.
Film noir is a distinctively American invention, French for black film. Artistically
marked by dark images and moody ambiance, theirs is a world of hardboiled private
eyes, femme fatales, and petty criminals. It is a place where Philip Marlowe and Sam
Spade were more than down and out detectives, they were complex characters
played by Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum. These films portrayed an era
where Lauren Bacall, Barbara Stanwyck, and Faye Dunaway were cigarette smoking,
martini sipping, manipulative bombshells in distress with secret agendas.
Pictured from top to bottom: Exterior and Bar at famed Formosa Cafe;
The mysterious Villa Carlotta (photos by Anita Rosenberg);
Vintage Hollywood (photo courtesy of 7060 Hollywood/Thomas P. Cox Architects).
These stories
revolved around violence and corruption, sexual obsession and alienation that came
straight from real life. They were tales about Los Angeles post Great Depression and
movie fans ate them up. It was all so juicy and delicious - erotic and disturbing.
“Life is good in Los Angeles, it’s paradise on earth. That’s what they tell you anyway. Because
they’re selling an image. They’re selling it through movies, radio, and television… You’d think
this place was the Garden of Eden. But there’s trouble in paradise.”
- Excerpt from L.A. Confidential
Through the years a keen interest in all things “noir” has taken hold of Hollywood.
This is the town that boasts exciting and dramatic architecture where famous movie
scenes from the late 1940’s and 50’s were shot. Deco mansions, Spanish bungalows,
and Tudor cottages from Beachwood Canyon to Whitley Heights were used in many
films. The
Formosa Café was also a recognizable location from the 1997 film
LA
Confidential
. Located on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa Avenue,
this Hollywood landmark that hasn’t changed much since it first opened as a Chinese
restaurant in 1939. Still owned and run by Lem Quon’s grandson, Vince Jung, the
Formosa Café, across from the historic Warner Hollywood Studio, has always been
“where the stars dine.” The walls are lined with 250 classic black & white photographs
autographed and hand-delivered by the actors themselves. The former railevery
corner road car in red lacquer Chinese décor once served as the center of a thriving bookmaking operation. Counted among its regulars
were Humphrey Bogart, Lana Turner and her gangster boyfriend
Johnny Stompanato.
So after Hollywoodland and Black Dahlia recently hit the silver
screen and audiences were talking about Hollywood in the 1940’s,
I had to ask myself
“where does film noir live?”
Can I find it driving
down Hollywood Boulevard? Is it on Selma or Wilcox? Is it in
my own backyard under the Hollywood sign? Pondering this question
while hiking up Runyon Canyon I stopped to catch my breath
and take in the view. As I pondered this question on a hike up
Runyon Canyon, I looked out over the city and saw film noir
spread out in front of me wrapped in a blanket of thick hazy fog.
The Broadway Hollywood building, Musso and Frank’s, and the
Observatory are some of the landmarks cloaking Hollywood in
legend. This is where the stories of
Chinatown and
Double
Indemnity
were invented. If you live and work in Hollywood, you
are bound to experience a film noir moment; there’s no escaping
it because things have not changed all that much. Sure the buildings
have been revamped and there’s a new generation flocking to
the boulevard, but a casual stroll past notorious landmarks transports
you back in time.
If you lived in L.A. in the 1940’s, after a long day on the set of
your latest detective thriller, you would head over to soak up the
Chandleresque ambiance of Musso & Frank Grill, Hollywood’s oldest
restaurant since 1919. You would slide into an oversized
booth where Manny or Sergio would greet you with a martini,
chopped salad and lamb chops sizzling hot off the grill. To your
right would be seated Dashiell Hammett and to your left
Raymond Chandler or Humphrey Bogart. A notorious writer’s
hangout and Hollywood haunt, these days you might spot Johnny
Depp, Christopher Walken, or Nicolas Cage at the next booth.
What I have learned from my brief adventure into film noir
Hollywood is that you create your own Hollywood experience. It
could be filled with tawdry love affairs and a thirst for fame and
fortune or it could be purely nostalgic where history lurks at every corner. It's up to you.
r
Note:
Explore this rich cinematic heritage when American
Cinematheque holds its 8th Annual Film Noir Festival (see Film).
In May, Hollywood Heritage, an organization dedicated to preserving
old Hollywood, will sponsor a one day historic sites tour
“Raymond Chandler’s Hollywood”
It will start at the quintessentially
Raymond Chandleresque corner of Franklin Avenue
and Tamarind and visit apartment buildings and other landmarks
where scenes were classic film noir scenes were shot.
(www.HollywoodHeritage.org or call: (323)467-0287).
Meanwhile to explore the locations where the stars walked, here are a few spots
to visit:
Classic film noir movies to get you in the Hollywood mood:
Double Indemnity
1944
The Big Sleep 1946, remake in 1978
Sunset Boulevard
1950
Chinatown
1974
LA Confidential
1997
Film noir locations to visit:
Crossroads of the World Center
6671 Sunset Boulevard
(LA Confidential)
Alto-Nido Apartments
1851 N. Ivar St.
(Sunset Boulevard and Black Dahlia)
Musso & Frank Grill
6667 Hollywood Blvd.
(323) 467-7788 (Raymond Chandler ambiance)
Formosa Café
7156 Santa Monica Blvd.
(323) 850-9050 (LA Confidential)
Boardner’s of Hollywood
1652 N. Cherokee Ave.
Church of the Blessed Sacrament
6657 Sunset Blvd.
Frolic Room
6245 Hollywood Blvd.
Chateau Marmont
,
The Hollywood Bowl
, and 6301 Quebec St. in the
Hollywood Hills (Double Indemnity)
Film Festivals:
8th Annual Festival of Film Noir at American Cinematheque at the Egyptian and
Aero Theatres – April 8th through 16th featuring special guest James Ellroy (LA
Confidential)
Websites:
www.L.A.Nocturne.com – Los Angeles Film Noir
www.seeing-stars.com – The ultimate guide to Hollywood
Vintage Hollywood Neon p
hoto courtesy of 7
060 Hollywood/Thomas P. Cox Architects.