Our Favorite Clifftop

[Chris Snowden]

Most of you will recognize this clifftop... it appears in Billy Bevan's Wall Street Blues (1924), Charley Chase's A Ten-Minute Egg (1924) and the Boy Friends' Air-Tight (1931), to name a few. I've also seen an undated gag shot of Snub Pollard at this location, but here's the earliest use of this location I know of.

From Exhibitors Herald, September 22, 1923:



A few years ago, John Bengtson, Brent Walker, David Totheroh and I put our heads together and identified the location as the edge of the southwest curve of Corona Del Mar in Santa Monica; the road along the beach is Pacific Coast Highway.

Does anyone have any additional info?

[Brent Walker]

Actually, Chris, it's in Pacific Palisades, just southwest of Temescal Canyon Road, an area called Palisades Park where there is now a street called Via de Las Olas (there was no street then). I first visited and figured out the location in the early 1980's, but I revisited in in 1999 or 2000 to photograph a "now" photo which is on my comedy film locations website:

http://home.earthlink.net/~bcwalk/filmh ... allst.html

[Louie Despres]

Brent,
Didn't know you had a website. Great read, thanks for sharing.

[Rob Farr]

I think this is also the clifftop that Mark Jones' car rocks atop in Family Life.

[Chris Snowden]

Actually, Chris, it's in Pacific Palisades, just southwest of Temescal Canyon Road, an area called Palisades Park where there is now a street called Via de Las Olas (there was no street then). I first visited and figured out the location in the early 1980's, but I revisited in in 1999 or 2000 to photograph a "now" photo which is on my comedy film locations website:

http://home.earthlink.net/~bcwalk/filmh ... allst.html

It's all coming back to me now. Brent, your location is in the same area, on the same ridge, just a bit to the north of Corona Del Mar. In one of the films (probably A Ten-Minute Egg, since I was writing notes for it at the time), you can just see the intersection of a road that meets Pacific Coast Highway down at sea level, and it's most likely where the present-day Chautauqua Blvd. and West Channel Road come together at PCH. (Actually you can see it in this Sid Smith photo too, but not as clearly.)

Working from frame grabs, John Bengtson used Google Earth to conclude that Corona Del Mar was a likelier spot than Via de Las Olas. David Totheroh lives in the area, and he felt John was correct. The location off Via de Las Olas that you photographed is definitely in the right area, but (to John, David and I at least) it seems a bit too far away from where that intersection appears in the film.

However... you've been there and I haven't. Did you try Corona Del Mar as well, and decide the other location was better?

There's a possibility, although it might be a long shot, that film crews were filming all along that ridge, rather than in one spot consistently.

[Brent Walker]

Yes, I remember AIR TIGHT being shot further south and looking north, and I don't know whether I've seen TEN MINUTE EGG. I was mainly concerned with the LIZZIES OF THE FIELD shot, and that looks like a bit north of there, based on the the beach line and other factors. Much of those cliffs have eroded or fallen in landslides, so that sort of horseshoe indentation you see between the foreground jutting out cliff and the jutting out one in the distance has now eroded down to more of a sloped hillside. My now photo actually is probably of the cliff in the distance in the shots, but its the only place I could get a shot where it still looked like a steep cliff. If these scenes were done looking south from Corona del Mar, you would see the wider Santa Monica beach area with beach house just below it, rather than way back in the distance almost around the bend.

[Brian Kirkpatrick]

I believe this may be the same cliff seen in the Lupino Lane film "Drama Deluxe".