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It makes sense to cut "the Admiral is coming" scene altogether if the surviving prints don't contain the payoff joke. But, as mentioned, this may have been the hotel's debut screen appearance, so a bit of LA history is lost along with the missing footage.

A missing scene from Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman contains likely the first screen appearance of the newly opened Beverly Wilshire Hotel. https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/blog-link_page_2.jpg and Buster’s newsreel fiasco in The Cameraman fully explained https://silentlocations.fi...

Quick – what are some essential elements for a silent comedy? A park bench? An angry cop? A banana peel? If you think about it, one absolutely essential geographic element is the humble street corner. https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/crazy-corner.jpg The crazy corner of Alameda at...

Happy New Year everyone! Buster Keaton made his 1929 New Year's Resolutions at the small bungalow he rented just outside of MGM before being forced to reside at “Keaton's Kennel” inside the studio lot. https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/1929.jpg https://silentlocations.files.wordpre...

Chaplin’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance solved a Keaton location years later, filming a "prison" scene at the Selig Studio for Convict 13 . https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/3-view-2.jpg While details must wait for a later post, Buster also filmed the many Convict 13 golf sc...

Just pre-ordered my copy. Thank you so much for making these films widely available.

Cheers, John

Guest blogger Jeffrey Castel de Oro [url]@jeffcdo[/url] reveals the amazing history of this lost adobe appearing in Buster Keaton’s The Scarecrow . https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/jeff-pan_page_1.jpg Using hidden clues in various archival photographs, Jeff pinpoints the very spot...

Charlie Chaplin filmed some of the earliest scenes of his career beside the Selig Polyscope Studio, the first permanent studio in Los Angeles. Built in 1909 it stood just two blocks north of the Keystone Studio. The studio appears several times during Tillie's Punctured Romance . https://silentlocat...

100 years later, beautiful mansions and rock pools survive, sunken gardens and train depots do not. There is so much LA history in part two of Mary Pickford’s Daddy Long Legs (1919). https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/ddl-shots_page_1.jpg https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/...

Lois Weber staged the climax to her 1913 home invasion thriller Suspense in “rural” Beverly Hills near Doheny and Sunset, where Charlie Chaplin later dressed as a tree for Shoulder Arms (1918), and Buster Keaton filmed two newly recovered scenes from The Blacksmith (1922). Weber also filmed Lost By ...