Home (latest issue) | Recent Photography | Image Archives | Guest Photography | The International Desk | About This Site | Search This Site | Just Above Sunset Commentary

Thursday, November 4, 2010 – Mere Illusion

In the 1987 cop/buddy movie Lethal Weapon some suicidal guy is up there, ready to jump, but the even crazier Mel Gibson saves his life, in an odd way. But even if you're depressed, don’t get any ideas. It's just a movie location, Emser Rugs and Tiles, 8431 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood – from 1925, by architects Niebecker and Jeffers – and the two stuntmen had a big airbag.

The former Charlie Chaplin Studios, on the northeast corner of La Brea and De Longpre Avenues, just south of Sunset Boulevard. Chaplin built his own Hollywood studio in 1918, and that's what this was until 1953. Then it became Kling Studios and they produced the old Superman television series with George Reeves. Red Skelton used the sound stages for his CBS variety show when CBS followed Kling as the owners of the place, and they filmed the Perry Mason series with Raymond Burr here. Then it became the home of A&M Records and Tijuana Brass Enterprises. A&M Records is now down in Santa Monica, part of the Universal Music Group. The old Charlie Chaplin Studios is currently the home of The Jim Henson Company, as in the Muppets, as in Kermit the Frog. In 1969 the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board named the studio a historical cultural monument, and that explains why Kermit the Frog is on the roof dressed as Charlie Chaplin's tramp, sort of. It's a nod to history. City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) were filmed here. It's all illusion.

Home (latest issue) | Recent Photography | Image Archives | Guest Photography | The International Desk | About This Site | Search This Site | Just Above Sunset Commentary

All text and photos unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik 

[November 2010] [Side by Side] [Hollywood Windows] [Old Windows] [Mission Revival] [Silly String] [Election Day] [The Surreal Sun] [Mulholland Drive] [In 3-D Now] [Watching You] [Old Neon] [Mere Illusion] [Ominous Alley] [World Famous] [In Layers] [White Hibiscus] [Hollywood Sunshine] [To Make a Star] [Hollywood Hotels] [Just Cosmic] [Slippery People] [In America] [Doors and Walls] [Neptune Beach] [At the Lagoon] [Moonlight Beach] [The Solana Cove] [The Swami Beach] [November Gulls] [Middle November] [Saturday Roses] [Just Looking] [In Hollywood] [Shine On] [This Is Not] [LA Guns] [The Dragon Gate] [China Light] [Shark Art] [Zoned Out] [Fresh Blues] [Graffiti Eyes] [Rain Blossoms] [Dark Crossroads] [Work in Progress] [Christmas West] [This Odd Town] [Identity Issues] [Graffiti Sky] [Negative Prints] [Black Cat Day] [California Republic] [Gift Wrapped] [Lighting Gallery] [Emerging] [Late Light] [The Truth] [Haunted Of Course] [Local Seasoning] [Winter Walls]