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Clues from Harry Houdini helped to solve the downtown locations where Chaplin filmed his very first movie. Read more - https://silentlocations.com/2019/09/12/harry-houdini-solves-a-charlie-chaplin-mystery/ https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/clues-from-harry-houdini-helped-to-solve-t...

Harold Lloyd employed 17 downtown buildings for his “thrill” stunt climbing movies – 14 survive. The final discovery, the concluding joke of Safety Last! with Noah Young still chasing after Bill Strother, was filmed looking down at them along 2nd and Main from the extant 10-story Higgins Building. h...

Lois Weber‘s innovative and aptly titled home invasion thriller Suspense (1913) provides remarkable views of early Hollywood at the dawn of the movie industry. A young mother, home alone (also portrayed by Ms. Weber) telephones her husband working late that a tramp is breaking into their home. When ...

The Criterion Collection release of Harold Lloyd's masterpiece The Kid Brother https://www.criterion.com/films/28499-the-kid-brother is loaded with special interviews, two rare shorts, and my visual essay Close to Home describing where and how the movie was staged, primarily at the Lasky Ranch. http...

The former Occidental College Hall of Letters has an incredible story. Abandoned in 1914, the Hall once appeared with Presidents Taft and Roosevelt, and later in Mary Pickford’s Daddy Long Legs (1919) and in Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (1921). Mary filmed orphanage exteriors on all sides of the buildi...

Buster Keaton’s wild motorcycle ride in Sherlock Jr. passes by the architecturally significant Schindler House still standing on Kings Road in Los Angeles. Read more here - https://silentlocations.com/2019/08/20/buster-keatons-sherlock-schindler/ https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/s...

My brief speech at the Keaton Studio plaque dedication last June 16, 2018. I first thought the link said "Plague Bengtson!" :)

https://youtu.be/dXKIyBAhRGI

Cheers, John

Not directly film related, but this post shows how Lloyd, Chaplin, Pickford-Fairbanks, and Keaton once all lived very close to each other. https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/c-4686_8-4-view-color.jpg To decipher the image, and see further views, read more here - https://silentlocati...

This Hollywood PR film https://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/hollywood-snapshots-1922# includes many unique views of early Hollywood, including street level views of the Famous Players - Lasky Studios on Vine, that I've never seen before. Lot of fun details and locations, i...

This movie shares many historic locations appearing in films with Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Stan Laurel. It really is a time machine. https://silentlocations.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/soft-shoes-sfsff-1.jpg I've written a post all about it https://silentlocations.com/2018/03/23/restoratio...