Studio Tours

One of the things I most looked forward to on our trip was visiting the motion picture studios.


Now, of the major studios of yore, none turn out the number of pictures they once did. Instead many of the old sound stages are now used by TV--something that would have had Louis B. mayer rolling in his grave. And only four of the major studios offer tours (WB, Sony, Parmount ad Universal). We chose to skip Universal as it's really a theme park ride and not a tour and the internet buzz about Paramount was not good. In fact, the reviews of Sony were bad too, but there was no way I could not go check them out since Sony now inhabits what was Metro Goldwyn Mayer (or MGM or Metro if you prefer), the biggest and best in Old Hollywood (MGM was know to have "more stars than there are in heaven").

So, on our first day in LA, we drove to Culver City (from Beverly Hills). Today, Culver City is a part of the city of LA, but when Metro was first formed and moved to this location, it was a separate town. Joan Crawford and other stars would drive South down Washington Blvd. from Brentwood and the Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills to get here. Back then, MGM owned acres acres of land, enough space to fit the main sound stages and 4 back lots (including a zoo for many of the animals used in film, as well as Leo the Lion). Today, the old MGM lot is just a shadow of its former self.

The first insult to the Metro legend is the fact that Sony uses this lot for its film subsidiary which is called Columbia Pictures! That's right--Columbia, the trashy film company that flew like a vulture to this location to pick the bones of MGM and its former glories. That means there was little if any serious attention paid to the glorious past of MGM (and all of Hollywood history right along with it). They proudly show off their Oscar won in 1034 for "It Happened One Night," but let's not forget, that picture starred Clark Gable, an MGM star. Ugh.

Anyway, the tour was somewhat lame. It was led by a 23-yo tour guide who is trying to break into the business as a writer for one-hour dramas. He was certainly nice enough, but you could tell he did not really care all that much about his job and, as such, was not very sharp on the details of the studio, the lot's history or anything like that. We also didn't really see anything all that cool. We saw a few facades on the "main street" that have been used in film, but no real back lot locations were shown. Of the sound stages we visited, only one, for the new Beyonce movie, was truly impressive. The sitcom set we saw (starring Ray Romano's TV brother) and the set of Jeopardy! were mostly closed down and there's not much to report there. It was also pretty annoying that we couldn't take pics on most of the lot. In short, the Sony tour was disappointing, though nonetheless a must for any Joan Crawford, or other MGM star who wants to soak in a bit of the physical history of that magical place.

Warner Brother's was a totally different story. Warner's has been around almost as long as MGM. It was founded by Harry, Jack and some other Warner Brother. If MGM was the creme de la creme of Hollywood studios--the prissy princess--than Warner's was nothing if not second best. Warner's didn't try to compete with the fluff and the picture perfect films that MGM put it out. Instead, it did westerns and gangster movies (like Jimmy Cagney's) and invested a lot of its dramatic energy in the so-called actress, Bette Davis. Now, it's hard for me to write about her objectively. I think she was a real bitch. But she made a lot of movies for Warner's. There are some other WB notables as well, and in general, there's no denying that Warner's was, and still is, a major Hollywood studio.

Although Old Hollywood is long gone, the excitement and activity one expects from a major studio is still alive at Warner Brothers. We arrive a bit early for our 9:15 AM tour. We arrived at an office building just off the lot, and met the rest of our small tour group and our guide.
Our guide's name was Sky. He was probably about 50 year old and after years of regional theatre and local acting he moved to LA about three years ago. He was on "Passions" for about 40 episodes as a deranged monk and he gives tours of the studio by day. He was great.

Sky drove us and our small tour group onto the Warner's lot in an oversized golf cart. We saw all kinds of cool stuff including the ER set, lots of building facades, live shooting, a New York Brownstone street and more. We stopped at a small museum on the lot (where I took an illegal pic of Joan Crawford's dress from "The Damned Don't Cry". [Sidebar: After Joan was ousted from MGM, the Warners were kind enough to offer her a three-picture deal, including most famously, "Mildred Pierce."]. We also got to visit an amazingly large props warehouse, where we saw the "Friends" set, and we saw some prop cars including the Batmobile, a car from Harry Potter, and the Dukes of Hazzard car. We also got to visit the still active set of "Two and Half Men" (such a vulgar show). We also learned an amazing amount (on both tours) about the extent to which these studios still use painted backdrops. But I digress. In short, Warner's tour: I loved it. And Joel did too.