Hollywood Story in 35mm

Hollywood Story in 35mm

Inspired by the unsolved 1922 murder of filmmaker William Desmond Taylor, this punchy whodunit finds new-to-town director Larry O’Brien (Richard Conte) obsessed by the legend of silent film director Franklin Ferrara, whose death on the National Artists Studio lot remains a mystery 21 years later. With Chaplin Studios on La Brea Avenue functioning as the fictional studio (it’s now home to the Jim Henson Company), director William Castle (The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill) shot many scenes on location around the city—including the Trocadero nightclub, the Los Angeles Times Building, and the Roosevelt Hotel—a departure from most studio pictures of the time which were filmed exclusively on sets.

DIRECTED BY: William Castle. WRITTEN BY: Frederick Kohner, Fred Brady. WITH: Richard Conte, Julie Adams, Richard Egan, Henry Hull. 1951. 77 min. USA. B&W. English. 35mm.

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