4 Aces, located in Palmdale, California, is every Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford and B-Minus-film noir from 1949 to 1960 wrapped up into one, big, delightful fake.
The Diner
This is where you take the woman hitchhiking in heels with a suitcase and a shady story about her father, in Chicago, kicking her out of the house, when you know it’s really something about a boyfriend or husband. The boyfriend or husband robbed a bank in Indiana, and the woman has the dough in that Samsonite.
You listen to her story all evening—before you do what you’re about to do with her during the rest of the night. The next morning, she’s dead.
4 Aces Motel
Jan-Peter Flack created a movie ranch that specializes in just one look, one slice of Americana that still seems to be hanging on. It’s Atomic Age America but with the door open and the sand beginning to sift inside and the decay starting to happen.
Even though it looks like a refurbished motel and diner, 4 Aces was apparently built in 1997, from scratch, and was first used for the Lenny Kravitz video for “American Woman.”
How bad can a movie be yet look fantastic? Ocean’s 11 (1960) is a heist film famous for its slick Rat Pack, mid-century modern trappings, but altogether a heaping, floppy mess. It’s a movie you want to like but can’t. It has no real highs, no lows, no drama, little humor. Interminable parts of the movie happen at Spyros Acebo’s Ladera Drive house in Beverly Hills, where the boys just talk and talk forever. Even one hour into the movie, they have only talked about the heist. The only real spark of life is with Cesar Romero, as Peter Lawford’s father-in-law-to-be, an unspecified Las Vegas fixer-gangster who wises up to the boys’ heist and exposes it.
Yet the movie has a great look, as the boys progress from casino to casino: Flamingo, Sands, Desert Inn, Riviera, and Sahara. This slavish progression through the five hotels not once, but twice (first casing the joints, then later on, robbing them) is a huge drag on the movie’s storyline, but it’s a great crosscut of 1960s Las Vegas.
Flamingo Bar
Flamingo Hotel and Casino Bar from Ocean’s 11 (1960)
Sands Cashier/Guard Stand
Sands Cashier/Guard Stand from Oceans 11 (1960)
Sands Hotel and Casino Phone Area
Sands Hotel and Casino Phone Area from Oceans 11 (1960)
Sands Hotel and Casino Coffee Shop
Sands Hotel and Casino Coffee Shop from Oceans 11 (1960)
Sahara Casino Nightclub
Sahara Casino Nightclub from Oceans 11 (1960)
Flamingo Hotel and Casino Entrance
Flamingo Hotel and Casino Entrance from Oceans 11 (1960)
Reporter Clay Gowran with giant camera from Land of the Giants
The Land of the Giants television show from 1969 was pure visual candy. It had to be, since the plots were thin and often ridiculous, even by the standards of this outlandish world. Episodes each cost a reported $250,000 to produce. Giant props were built that simulated an oversized world that the travelers in the spacecraft Spindrift encountered. In one episode, the crew devise a plot to steal a revolver–a prop that, according to producer Irwin Allen, cost $9,200 to create. No CGI here, everything was accomplished with mattes, wide angle lenses, camera angles, and those giant props. Liberal use was made of the giant telephone, books, beaker, safety pin (which the crew used as a grappling hook), pencil, sardine can, bottle caps, and fire hydrant. It’s interesting to note, too, that so many of those items are quaint antiques today.
Irwin Allen told reporters that he conceived of Land of the Giants after having a nightmare where he was chased around by giants. This unnamed world was supposed to be twelve times larger than Earth, with cars 60 feet long and pencils 8 feet long. When Clay Gowran, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, visited Allen at 20th Century Fox in August 1968, he had to use a 14-foot stepladder to reach the top of the 35 mm camera prop.
Giant wrench
Giant clock and cart made from sardine can and bottlecaps
Giant set of stairs merged with giant person via matte
It’s the part of the I Love Lucy TV series that stands out in so many viewers’ minds: Hollywood and the Beverly Palms Hotel. For three seasons, Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethel lived in Manhattan. There were location changes between apartments, Ricky’s Tropicana Club, various stores, but mainly they stayed within the New York area. Then in season 4, Ricky gets a movie offer and about halfway through that season they all pile into a car and drive to Hollywood.
Where they stay is the fictional Beverly Palms Hotel. A brief exterior shot shows the car passing the porte cochere of the Beverly Palms, today the Avalon Hotel.
When you enter Ricky and Lucy’s room, you enter a foyer. This is the real room:
And this is a replica of the Beverly Palms Hotel, located at the Lucy museum in Jamestown, NY.
Here is the room as a whole.
And the replica in Jamestown, NY.
Then a close-up of the sofa with Lucy and Ethel.
And the porch and Hollywood photo backdrop. In the backdrop, you can see the Knickerbocker Hotel. On March 4, 1966, William Frawley, who lived at the El Royale Apartments at 450 N. Rossmore Avenue, had left a movie theater near the Knickerbocker and collapsed in front of the Knickerbocker, where he died.
With these photos of Universal Studios in 1972, understand the context: this was the studio at one of its lowest points. Its big, bustling period of huge stars and directors was well in the past. Its next boom, the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls period detailed by author Peter Biskind–Jaws, The Sting, American Graffiti–had not yet happened, though it was right around the corner. Though it was a well-established studio tour and most of it was orchestrated for tourists, a few “real studio” elements did shine through.
Universal Studios Entrance
Far quieter than it is today. Notice that you could park just a few feet away from the ticket booths.
Western Set (for Tourists)
Universal Studios 1972 – Western Set
Traditional Westerns were long dead by 1972 (replaced by the anti-Western), notably 1969’s True Grit. But the iconography of the Western still meant something to most people.
Especially the Western Stunt Show
Universal Studios 1972 – Western Show with Stunt Men
Purely for tourists, the Western stunt show, with blank guns a-firing and stuntmen a-fallin’, were a staple of many fake Western towns of that period.
Prop Plaza’s Fighter Jet
Universal Studios 1972 – USAF Fighter Jet
Prop Plaza was a place for tourists to chill. All of the props scattered around the plaza were authentic.
Above Universal Studios
Universal Studios looks nothing like this today. A fire in 2008 destroyed much of the backlot.
Top View of Universal Studios Backlot and New York Street
Universal Studios 1972 – High View of Studio
A tighter view showing the extensive New York Street backlot at Universal.
Snow-Making Machine and Snow Backdrop
Universal Studios 1972 – Snow Backdrop
Put together for tourists, this snow backdrop featured a snow-making machine (top). A wire cylinder rotated, releasing the fake snow. Almost certainly the backdrop of the snowy scene was used in Universal movies of the past.
Stuntmen Practicing on New York Street
Universal Studios 1972 – New York Street
Not a demonstration for tourists, this was a group of stuntmen practicing or rehearsing a scene for a movie or TV show.
Interior Room Set
Universal Studios 1972 – Interior Home Set
Likely this was a real interior set that was temporarily available for the studio tour.
Fake Burning House
Universal Studios 1972 – House on Fire Exterior Set
This fake burning house would catch fire every time a tram passed by. This was a real set.
Back of the Burning House
Universal Studios 1972 – House on Fire Set Back Side
Fake Rocks on Prop Plaza
Universal Studios 1972 – Hefting Fake Rocks
Oversized Telephone, Chair, and Table
Universal Studios 1972 – Giant Props
Prop Plaza: Giant Books, Scissors, Hand
Universal Studios 1972 – Giant Book Props
Titles: Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion, Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, and a fake novel, Frenzy, referring to the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. While it’s tempting to think that these props were used in the Land of the Giants TV show (1968 to 1969), this is unlikely, since Giants was produced by 20th Century Fox.
Fake Rain
Universal Studios 1972 – Fake Rain on Sea Port
Fake Snow Scene with Dry California Hills in Background
Universal Studios 1972 – Exterior Snow Set
Seaport and Dock
Universal Studios 1972 – Exterior Sea Port
Sea Port and Dock Set with Wave-Making Machine
Universal Studios 1972 – Exterior Sea Port with Wave Making Machine
OK, maybe not waves exactly–ripples?
Sea Port and Dock Set
Universal Studios 1972 – Exterior Sea Port and Dock
