I recently came back from a two-week visit to Los Angeles, a city I had never been to before. As a life-long cinephile, it is a place I have wanted to visit all my life, a city I imagined as somewhat mysterious, a feeling likely fueled by how it has often been portrayed by Hollywood.
I had positive and negative impressions for sure. In this blog post, we will not focus on the Metro and that insane homelessness crisis. Instead, let’s take a look at what a film nerd should do on their first visit to Tinseltown.
Begin with Hollywood
After all, it’s where the industry was built and it’s a soft beginning. Easily accessible via the Metro’s red line, there are a few stops along Hollywood Boulevard that take you right to the Walk of Fame. If you get off at Hollywood/Highland, you’re smack-dab in the middle of everything. Hollywood of today has come a long way since it was a small village where early 20th century film entrepreneurs found a new home, looking for a way to escape Thomas Edison’s punishing misuse of his film equipment patent on the east coast. Today, it looks more like Times Square, crowded with tourists and neon signs, souvenir vendors craving your attention.
Not my favorite place, but it’s fun to locate the site outside Dolby Theatre where the stars line up on Oscar night and it’s worth taking a stroll along Walk of Fame and look for your favorite performer. Ultimately though, all there is to it is just a plaque in the street.
Still, there’s a good chance to see some action on Hollywood Boulevard. After all, this is where they premiere blockbusters, close off sections of the street and make a big deal of it. Sometimes there are performances inside the shopping centre, Ovation Hollywood, or why not catch a movie at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, one of the nation’s best-known.
Movie buffs should pay Larry Edmunds a visit, a bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard that’s packed with new and used books on film and TV. It’s also on this street that you’ll find the most classic of Hollywood restaurants, The Musso and Frank Grill, that’s been around since Chaplin’s days (yes, he was a regular).
What about the Hollywood sign? You can catch a good glimpse of it at a few intersections along Hollywood Boulevard. But it is best seen from Griffith Park.
a walk among the tombstones
A 20- or 30-minute walk (or Uber ride) south from Hollywood Boulevard takes you to Hollywood Forever, one of Tinseltown’s most famous cemeteries. Golden Girls fans make sure to locate Estelle Getty’s grave, but also look up the Douglas Fairbanks Lawn. Not only are senior and junior buried there in a crypt, but some of the cemetery’s most noteworthy residents and headstones are scattered around a small lake. Very beautiful.
The grand tributes to Burt Reynolds, Tony Scott, Johnny Ramone and Anton Yelchin are sure to grab your attention. Next to Scott is a more recent grave, that of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was accidentally shot and killed by Alec Baldwin during the making of Rust.
Costumes, props… and bruce
The fancy new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is worth a couple of hours. Located in Miracle Mile, the neighborhood may have a few museums but public transportation isn’t great here, for some strange reason. The purple Metro line will be extended in the coming years, but for now you’ll have to settle for buses, Uber or drive yourself.
The museum has gorgeous displays of various costumes and props from movies, including a special hall with sci-fi and superhero memorabilia, where you can see Captain America’s shield and a blood-stained stormtrooper helmet, among many other objects. I enjoyed learning how the werewolves were created and operated for An American Werewolf in London; there was also Alfred Hitchcock’s hand-written shot list for a sequence in The Birds, and make-up instructions for Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd. The museum also has one of the oldest Oscars on display, from the first presentation of the award in 1929.
And, yes, that’s Bruce hanging from the ceiling, one of the shark models used in Jaws.
Skip Universal and pick other studio tours
I was totally set on visiting Universal before I got to L.A. After all, it’s the most classic studio tour in town. It has the Psycho house! But after visiting the city’s other three major studio tours, I realized that Universal no longer felt like a must. Universal advertises the studio tour as included in your visit to the theme park… but I didn’t bring any kids on this trip and wasn’t too interested in the rides. In short, I just wanted to go on the tour. But that would cost me over a hundred bucks for 45-60 minutes on a golf cart that doesn’t make any stops; it is considered another ride in the theme park.
Warner Bros, Sony Pictures and Paramount all have studio tours that are cheaper and offer more for the money. I did them all; less fanatical or more budget-minded visitors should just pick one. If you bring kids, Warner is better suited because they have interactive Harry Potter and superhero displays.
Paramount is next to Hollywood Forever; Sony in Culver City (the old MGM lot); and Warner is close to Universal in North Hollywood. All tours are fairly similar, with a guide who takes you on a 60-120 minute trip around the lot. You will be served the history of that particular studio, see places where famous scenes were shot and, if you’re in luck, spot a star who has a project on the lot. There will be opportunities to get off the golf cart and visit sets inside studios.
All tours give you the chance to hold an actual Oscar and have your photo taken with it. So does the Academy Museum – but they charge extra for the experience, so save your money if you already have a studio tour booked.
Paramount has one of the most ambitious backlots in terms of creating New York streets, for instance; many other studios pay for access to their lot while shooting films and TV shows. My visit at Paramount included the set of The Rookie; at Warner, we stepped into Chuck Lorre’s new sitcom, Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage. Warner also has a jungle of their own, with plants and trees that are decidedly not part of inner L.A.’s flora; one of the T-Rex chases in Jurassic Park was filmed there. At Sony, we visited a foley studio where sound effects are created and a very impressive recording studio where legendary movie scores have been recorded.
All of the studios have lots of props; among the highlights at Sony are the original Ghostbusters Ecto-1 and the RV from Breaking Bad, complete with bullet holes. On display at Warner is Jack Warner’s old phone book, with long-gone numbers to everyone from Walt Disney to Salvador Dalí, and all the movie stars. They also have the original fountain from the Friends intro, where there’s also a couch for you to sit while they take your picture.
I was especially dumb-founded when we reached an enormous, blue-painted parking lot at Paramount and I was told that this is where they shot the final showdown between Harrison Ford and Sean Bean in Patriot Games (1992).
That’s not possible, I thought. That took place out at sea. There was a thunderstorm! And a boat chase! But… yeah. Filling the lot up with water takes a day, said the guide. They use it quite frequently and put up greenscreens around it, so we can be transported to some faraway watery location. That’s movie magic for you.
There is one more studio tour to mention, Walt Disney Studios in Burbank… but it’s reserved for fan-club members.