We all know how much Hollywood film production has been battered in the last few years. Yet my heart still sank a bit when I learned the highly anticipated Netflix miniseries of John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” — one of the great California epics — was filmed on location in New Zealand. |
It’s a minor indignity in the scheme of things, though it did remind me of the days when it seemed every TV show, movie, music video and commercial was shot in California. Los Angeles led the way as a stand-in for everything and everywhere. |
The great imposter |
As a latchkey kid who watched hour after hour of television in the afternoons, I took pride in spotting my city despite the camouflage. The errant palm tree in the English countryside manor. The quintessentially black L.A. traffic lights and blue signage in a bustling “Manhattan streetscape.” The distant San Gabriel Mountains behind what was supposed to be a Midwestern city. |
The magic act was part Hollywood craftsmanship, part perfect location. Back then, it was smoggy so much of the year that the cityscape seemed to fade away after a few blocks into a gray screen, creating a pollution-fueled soundstage. |
We’ll fake Manhattan! |
Today, Los Angeles struggles as productions flee to places including New Jersey, Georgia, London and Albuquerque, which are taking their turns as urban shape-shifters. But it was L.A. that pioneered it. |
The promise of year-round filming is one reason the entertainment industry moved to Hollywood in the first place. There is that famous 1927 Paramount Pictures map of California suggesting how different locales could be used for filming: Palos Verdes as Wales, Santa Barbara as the Spanish Riviera, the Mojave as the Sahara, the Sierra as Switzerland. |
The downtown Los Angeles of the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s really felt like a back lot. The city center was famously run down, vacant and filled with neglected architectural gems perfect for any project. The Times chronicled the intense competition for downtown filming space in a story titled “We’ll Fake Manhattan.” |
“It serves for just about anyplace, USA,” a location scout said in 1998. “A great deal of downtown L.A. not only looks like New York but other major cities.” |
During those boom days, productions were lining up to take over the prime spots. Spring Street for the Art Deco look. Broadway for its movie palaces and Manhattan street scene. Certain alleyways were favored for chases and gangster murders. Figueroa or Flower streets for the corporate look. What is now the Arts District for industrial grit. |
Downtown was still hot a decade ago when I wandered out of The Times’ old newsroom to see the side of City Hall transformed into Washington, D.C. A few blocks away on Spring Street, a real-life-scale Manhattan subway station emerged (on closer examination, the staircase down ended after two steps). |
An uncertain future |
Downtown Los Angeles is still a hub for filming, but it’s just not the same. As my colleagues Samantha Masunaga and Stacy Perman reported, film shoot days in L.A. have fallen nearly 50% since 2019, while the motion picture industry has shed around 57,000 jobs in four years. Increasingly, we hear about places such as Atlanta and Vancouver filling in for Los Angeles. (Don’t get me started about HBO shooting a 2011 miniseries version of the L.A. crime classic “Mildred Pierce” in Long Island!) |
In 2003, filmmaker Thom Andersen produced an influential and highly entertaining documentary about how film portrays the city called “Los Angeles Plays Itself.” |
I’d love a companion film called “Los Angeles Plays Someone Else.” |
It could include some of my favorites, starting with the unassuming apartment building on New Hampshire Avenue in Koreatown that became the home of the ultimate Manhattanite: Jerry Seinfeld. |
And it would end with “Friends With Benefits,” starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. |
The 2011 romantic comedy intentionally mocks L.A. as a location for so many New York movies. Dylan (Justin) and Jamie (Mila) are getting cozy watching a faux New York rom-com on TV. It’s clearly filmed at L.A.’s Union Station as a highly unrealistic fill-in for Grand Central Station. Dylan calls it out, just as the couple on screen embark on a Central Park horse-drawn carriage through a sea of L.A. palm trees. |
Southwest of Eden |
So now, New Zealand has its chance to play California. Steinbeck’s book takes place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Salinas and Monterey. Portions of the 1955 Elia Kazan movie were shot in Salinas and along the Mendocino Coast. The director of the new miniseries, Zoe Kazan, made a fair point about picking New Zealand, telling Netflix that “there’s a lot of unspoiled landscape in a way that would be much harder to find here. The actual Salinas Valley doesn’t look the way that it did anymore.” |
It turns out her grandfather felt the same way. Elia Kazan believed the Salinas of the 1950s was way too modern for many key scenes, according to a detailed story of the production in American Cinematographer that originally ran in the publication in 1955. So he filmed a good deal back at the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, painstakingly re-creating Salinas down to the detailed carvings of the wood and the products on the store shelves. “The Research department heads spent several weeks in Salinas gathering old photographs and information from the citizenry about the town as it was prior to our entry into World War I,” the article said. |
And Salinas didn’t seem to mind. When the movie came out, Steinbeck himself penned a piece for the Salinas Californian, declaring it “probably the best movie I’ve ever seen.” |
Top stories |
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A kayaker watches waves crash into barriers and homes along the boardwalk on the Long Beach Peninsula on Saturday. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) |
The threats that remain from storm Rachel |
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How L.A. became a turtle smuggling hot spot |
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Battle over transgender rights |
- For the second election cycle in a row, the rights of transgender people have taken center stage politically, despite their accounting for only about 1% of the U.S. population.
- Many voters identify other issues as far more important, yet the issue of transgender rights has split Republicans and Democrats, and it’s split Democrats among themselves and put the party on the defensive.
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Commentary and opinion |
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Editor’s pick |
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‘I’m not gonna sit in a corner and cry for him when I have so much to do,’ Blanca Ortiz says. ‘I need to figure out how to pay the mortgage, how to pay the bills, how to keep the shop running.’ |
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Things to do |
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“Fire and ice” combination of berbere and cardamom ice creams made by Russell and Yvette Platoff at their Eagle Rock restaurant Aunt Yvette’s Kitchen. (Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times) |
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Today’s recipe |
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(Los Angeles Times) |
More adorable than spooky, these Halloween treats are nothing more than homemade marshmallows, using just a handful of ingredients. Although the recipe does require the use of a candy thermometer, the hardest part is probably piping the “ghost” shapes just right. |
Question for you |
What is your favorite Halloween candy? |
Jody S. says, “I’ll shamelessly admit this. The most maligned Halloween candy out there is my all-time favorite: candy corn!” |
Glenn C. says, “Nestle Crunch are my favorite Halloween candy.” |
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. |
Photo of the day |
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Waves crash against East Seaside Walk as homes collapse at the Long Beach Peninsula on Sunday. (Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times) |
Games |
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Here’s today’s mini crossword, plus our other free, daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games. |
Have a great day, from the Essential California team |
Jack Dolan, investigative reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, Fast Break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, weekend writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters |
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com. |
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