As development momentum in Downtown Los Angeles continues to build upwards and outwards, we couldn't help but be fascinated by the neon signs and illuminated marquees toward the tail end of Downtown's last boom period. See for yourself in this video from 1946 on the Internet Archive.
A board at the beginning of each take identifies these as process plates for the 1947 film Down to Earth, starring Rita Hayworth. Process shots were widely used to create driving scenes in movies—you film the street scenes and then later project them onto a screen inside a studio that the actors can then pretend to drive in front of.
The video begins looking down the center of the street as the camera-toting car heads south on Olive Street and then east on 8th Street, past the since-demolished RKO Theatre as well as the old Olympic Theatre (currently slated for a retail revival).
The rest of the video retraces the route with a series of three-quarter views, almost all starting at the Biltmore Hotel's entrance on Olive Street, down to 8th and east into what today we'd think of as the Flower District. The storefront-facing perspective perfectly captures the buzz of retail activity in Downtown at the time, with familiar names like See's Candies and Van de Kamp Bakery alongside oddities like a United Airlines storefront across from Pershing Square. Also visible: quite a few surface parking lots, which began to pop up as the increasingly car-driven population started moving out into the suburbs.
You'll spot the ornate Art Deco lobby of the Oviatt Building (at the 2:40 mark in the video, and again more clearly at 7:00), as well as the former tiki-themed Clifton's Pacific Seas (4:58) and the still-going-strong Golden Gopher (5:38).
Just after the 8-minute mark, you'll get a peek down Broadway toward the Rialto Theatre (now an Urban Outfitters) and the Tower Theatre (then known as the Music Hall).
A minute later, the footage switches to a shot going up Broadway, starting at the Ninth and Broadway Building. With the camera pointed to the east side of the street, you happen to get some of Broadways biggest landmarks: the Orpheum Theatre, Globe Theatre, Clifton's Cafeteria (then Clifton's Brookdale), Palace Theatre, Spring Arcade and the illuminated trio of the Arcade, Cameo and Roxie Theatres (or at least the lower halves of their marquees).
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