Grand Performances

Updated 6/26/05:   Angelenos turned out last night for the screening of an L.A. classic, Billy Wilder's 1944 murder scheme film noir, Double Indemnity, the second presentation of the season of Grand Performances, the outdoor performing arts series at California Plaza, downtown.   David Kipen, book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, and CalArts Critical Studies faculty member Norman Klein opened the event with a discussion on noir and L.A.   Klein observed that noir, its paranoia and complexity, is a powerful concept of the 20th century and made the point that Double Indemnity began the unconscious nightmare vision of Los Angeles, dangerous, racist, crazy; began the romance with and hatred of the city that seems today tilting in favor of romance.   Klein's books include The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory, Bleeding Through: Layers of Los Angeles, 1920-86 and The Vatican to Vegas: The History of Special Effects.

The film, with screenplay by Wilder and L.A. storyteller Raymond Chandler, provides a 1940s glimplse of the city, including the Hollywood Bowl, the Glendale train station, a fabulous open atrium downtown office building and Barbara Stanwyck's house on the hill that is described as "Los Feliz," but actually is a little further west and higher in the Hollywood Hills between Beachwood and Cahuenga.   Checking out the house today, at the corner of Quebec Drive and El Contento Drive, is a bit of a let down.   Alterations through the years have changed its look, and homes built later block the film's wide open view across Quebec to the city below.   The arched double garage doors have been replaced by a single, so it's difficult to relive the creepy scene where Fred MacMurray hides in the back seat of the car.   Still, it's a notable house and a lovely neighborhood.   Walking the nearby streets and hiking up the hill on Creston Drive for great views of the city, Lake Hollywood and the Hollywood Sign will likely support Klein's notion about romance.