Calling Chris Bungo, Brad Farrell, Jim Dallape, Robert A. Winslow, John Bengtson, Jim Wiley and any other L&H-location buffs: Whatever got decided about the location for the last scene in Perfect Day, where the car sinks into the mudhole? I remember there was some back-and-forth about this a couple of weeks ago. Heres what I have in my updated chapter, so *please* tell me where Im wrong... The films’s glorious finale, with the boys’ car descending into a mudhole until only Stan and Ollie’s floating hats can been seen, was an example of the Roach technicians giving their all for the sake of a good gag. It took a small army of technicians — men who were particularly attuned to the peculiar problems presented by comedy films — to help get such gags across to audiences. The Press Sheet for Perfect Day tells how the gag was accomplished: “A huge mudhole was excavated and filled with water in one of the Hal Roach studio streets… The mudhole, 8 feet deep, 20 feet long and 12 feet wide, was fitted with pulleys, so that the automobile could be lowered to the bottom without accident.” This was actually shot in Culver City, not on one of the backlot’s “studio streets.” One wonders if the residents of Helms Avenue were still amused by the antics of their nearby neighbors at the Roach lot, or if they had become bothersome distractions. In any event, the house with the distinctive chimney in the final shots is still at 3349 Helms, although the chimney is no longer there; behind it, and still looking much as it did in 1929, is the house next door at 3341 Helms. The street had originally been named Partenico, but was re-christened in honor of the nearby Helms Bakery which brought much revenue, and some glorious pastries, to Southern California for decades.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 23:53:15 +0000