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Borrowing the Keaton Studio

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 8:33 pm
by Chris Snowden
This is likely old news for some of you, but it wasn't for me, so here goes. Apparently the Keaton Studio was available to outside producers when Buster was between films.

The 7/8/27 issue of Motion Picture News notes that Herbert Brenon and company had been filming Sorrell and Son at the United Artists Studio (otherwise known as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio). But with My Best Girl and The Gaucho both going into production there that month, accommodations must have gotten a bit cramped. So on June 13, the Sorrell and Son company left and set up shop nearby at the Keaton Studio, where sets had already been constructed and were ready for use. An item in another article notes that the Sorrell and Son team would be leaving for England on July 16 to film authentic exteriors, so it stands to reason that quite a lot of that film was shot amidst Buster Keaton's footprints.

Elsewhere in the issue, it's reported that production on the upcoming Keaton release College had recently been completed.

All of these were United Artists films. One wonders if Joseph Schenck volunteered the use of the Keaton Studio, and how much rent might have been paid--- which must have trimmed the overhead expenses that would otherwise have been applied to the budget of College.

Re: Borrowing the Keaton Studio

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:08 am
by Richard M Roberts
You know Chris, you've made me ask a question I have never thought of before: what did happen to the Keaton studio after Buster Keaton Productions closed it's doors, since it was a silent film studio, I'd imagine it did not have a long life without soundstages, but was there any use of it after STEAMBOAT BILL JR., and when did it get demolished?

We know what happened to the Chaplin and Lloyd studios, and some silent film studios like the old Bosworth and Vitagraph studios still stand today and are in use, but I can't say I've ever read or investigated anything about what happened to the Keaton Studios post-Keaton.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Re: Borrowing the Keaton Studio

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:02 pm
by John Bengtson
For what it's worth, the Keaton Studio demolition permit (historic LA building permits are searchable online) was pulled on May 27, 1931. The person listed as owner was J.F. Germain, address 6139 Fountain Ave.

I read somewhere, that makes sense, that the studio was too small, out of date, to make it feasible to convert it to talkie movie production.

Re: Borrowing the Keaton Studio

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2018 4:15 am
by Richard M Roberts
Thanks for the info, John.

RICHARD M ROBERTS