This post presents bits and pieces of Hollywood history appearing in an assortment of little-known films, many unavailable for decades.

I closely follow Dave Glass’s invaluable YouTube channel. You never know what brief scene from an obscure film will reveal more Hollywood history. To begin, check out these scenes from the 1924 Billy Bevan comedy Bright Lights, starting at 05:25 HERE and again at 06:05 HERE.  Do they look familiar?

That’s right – it’s the back end of the Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd Alley, where Harold Lloyd filmed many scenes from Safety Last! (1923). Check out my YouTube videos showing the discovery of the alley HERE, and how Harold made Safety Last! HERE.

Next, a recent post showed how Douglas Fairbanks and Buster Keaton filmed along all sides of the former Hollywood Fire-Police Station, leading a virtual tour around the now lost site, read more HERE. It was fun to show in this post how the adorable early silent film comedienne Gale Henry frequently filmed here too.

Well, thanks to Joseph Blough’s wonderful YouTube channel, we see more views of Gale Henry filming in back of the fire station during her 1919 film Pants – watch video HERE. A key plot device, a seemingly insurmountable brick wall separates a “boy’s college” from a “girl’s seminary,” leading to mischief, mayhem, and true love. Above, it’s love at first sight as the college handy-man encounters Gale, the seminary cook.

A wider view during Pants, left, reveals the free-standing wooden car parking enclosure behind the wall, fully visible to the right during a brief clip of the Sid Smith and Harry McCoy Hallroom Boys comedy Put and Take (1921), right, hosted by the Eye Filmmuseum at their Bits & Pieces YouTube channel series, Nr. 631, visible at 01:35 HERE.

Gale’s brick wall appears throughout the Douglas Fairbanks 1916 comedy Flirting With Fate, above left, looking south, above right looking NW (click to enlarge), the arrow marking Doug’s pathway relative to Gale and the wooden car parking enclosure in the corner. HollywoodPhotographs.com.

Next, responding to growing, widely criticized Hollywood scandals, the film community produced self-promotional movies reassuring middle America that the folks in Hollywood were, gosh darn it, just good, honest, friendly folks like everyone else. One of my favorite posts dissects such a film, Hollywood Snapshots, in great detail, and its treasure trove of historic, often unique images of early Hollywood. From that film, above, rare street level views in 1922, of the 7200 Santa Monica Blvd. entrance to the Pickford Fairbanks Studio (left – note Doug’s castle set for Robin Hood) and the 1520 Vine St. entrance to the Famous-Players Lasky Studios (right). Can you imagine just walking along the street and seeing a castle?

Once again with gratitude to Joseph Blough, we can study another visually stunning historic 1922 self-promotional film Night Life in Hollywood. I hope to do a lengthy detailed post about this film, which features views of the Will Rogers’ early home in Beverly Hills, the Hollywood homes of Jack Kerrigan, Wallace Reid, and Theo Roberts, and numerous Hollywood Blvd. locales, including the once open fields further west of town. Until then, above, country boy Joe Frank Glendon decides to check out Hollywood for himself, where his new friend leads him into the 6642 Santa Monica Blvd. entrance to the Hollywood Metropolitan Studios – click to enlarge. HollywoodPhotographs.com.

Above, following her brother Joe to town, and convinced her alluring cinematic charms must be shared with the world, country gal Gale Henry (yes, her again, another fun performance), attempts to sneak into the studio for an audition. The arrow above marks her position by the front office. At left, Gale grabs a taxi beside the lost Southern Pacific depot – the homes at back once stood on Central Ave. across the street. The Hollywood Metropolitan Studios shown above, completely reconfigured but still operating at the same locale today as the Sunset Las Palmas Studios, is where Harold Lloyd would later create his independently produced films after leaving the Hal Roach Studios.

Once again from Night Life in Hollywood, noted Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa and his wife Tsuro Aoki greet country boy Joe and his friend at their home once located at 1904 Argyle on the NE corner of Franklin. It is here in the movie Joe realizes “the fact that the Hollywood motion picture colony is no sensual Babylon that the home town papers painted it.” Known as Castle Glengarry, the incredible mansion was built by Hollywood promoter Dr. Schloesser (Dr. Castles), whose next, bigger, larger mansion just up the street, Castle Sans Souci, appeared in many early films, including Charlie Chaplin’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914). Read my post about Castle Sans Souci HERE. USC Digital Library.

Above, a view of the rear of the house, a point of view of this once landmark home that may be truly unique, as I have never seen the back of this lost home in a photo before. Also, how cute is that? Sessue and Tsuro’s pet dog had his own Castle Glengarry dog house!

I have identified dozens of random locations from dozens of random obscure films that don’t easily fit within a certain theme or category, so I hope to post more “potpourri” articles such as this to help document Hollywood’s vast unclaimed visual history. Remember too, the remarkable street level views of early Hollywood reported in this post, many of which are unique, were captured from the films presented on YouTube for our enjoyment and study by Hollywood heroes Dave Glass and Joseph Blough. Please visit their YouTube channels – Dave Glass YouTube – Joseph Blough YouTube.

I hope you will check out my latest YouTube video Buster Keaton’s San Francisco footsteps, and the many other Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd videos posted on my YouTube Channel.