I’m cheating a little bit today because I actually took this photo on Monday. But I spent all day inside or rushing from one building to the next to escape the heat. Most sources reckon it reached 88 degrees Faranheit, so just as well I don’t have Dave’s syndrome. (You have to be a Black Books fan to understand that remark.) That’s 31 Celcius, and it’s set to stay there for tomorrow and Friday.The building in this picture is the Doheny Memorial Library, where the cinema and television library is housed, as well as various others. It’s a wonderful Art Deco building with marble floors in the lobby, wooden interiors in the elevator, and by contrast some incredibly institutional-looking staircases! I may ask if I can take pictures inside next time I’m there.
The Cinema and Television library proudly displays its collections of movie memorabilia. There’s a whole glass cabinet of various affects of Cecil B. De Mille’s, including the great man’s ink-stand. Today I noticed for the first time a matte painting of the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz (a painted background that was filmed separately from the live-action footage and combined with it later). Even though the whole idea of matte painting was to save from having to paint huge backdrops to film against, I was still surprised by how small it was – only about a metre square.
If you look for pictures of the Doheny Memorial Library on Google, you are bound to find some taken from the approaching footpath, with a fountain in the middle and hedges either side. But this lovely Italianate doorway tends to get swamped in wider shots.
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