MTFCA Forum

My wife and I are in Los Angeles to film an episode for the Discovery Channel tomorrow. Came upon this mural in a parking garage a block from our hotel.

Cool. The two guys in the car, if I'm not mistaken, are Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle. I imagine the third guy is you??

Yes, I’m the short one. How often can I say that?

Can you share any details about the Discovery Channel show? Is it a secret?

Mark, How about letting us Locals know where that mural is at as well?

Very Cool

We are at the Hoxton Hotel on Broadway. The garage is around 1030 on the same side of the street. There is a 1930s Packard parked in that garage.

Can’t talk to much about the Discovery project. It a pilot program on historic photographic forensics and France and I are the historic process specialists.

Publicity still from the film "The Garage," 1920.

However, in the actual film, the car falls apart while driven by a customer who is renting it.

The Hoxton Hotel is just a few blocks down Broadway from this.

True, thought none of the buildings in that
picture exist today. Replaced by the Orpheum .. United Artists theaters and more modern apartments. We are at the Magic Theater in Hollywood tonight.

Mark:
If you have a chance, come on by. Perhaps we can go to lunch or dinner?

Hey Larry, wish we could. We shoot today then are meeting another business contact over dinner and then fly back to the land of cold tomorrow morning.

Darn it. I’m 30 miles south of La and would have driven up in a heartbeat. Safe travels!

First notice, a tall (?) skinny and a shorter fatter in a collapsed T. "Must be Laurel and Hardy." About one second to realize it wasn't them, and isn't that Buster Keaton? Sure enough, and the other looks like Fatty Arbuckle.
Wonderful stuff! And that is a movie I have never seen.

So correct me: no kerosene cowl lamps. Assuming a '19 starter car? The flick is credited to '20 so damn near a new car? (pretty shiney too).

Looks like the side light brackets are there. Just no lights.

Pretty cool find Mark! Gorgeous for a painted mural.
Have fun!

The star tab on the license plate shows that the registration is valid for the year 1919 in California.
I think you're right. That car is probably less than a year old.
I read an article about Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. He hated being called "Fatty". Whenever someone would address him by that name, he would reply "I got a first name, you know?"
The Neathercutt Automobile Collection in Sylmar, Ca. has one of Arbuckle's McFarland autos that he once owned. When the Neathercutt craftsman began restoring the car, they found a strange hole pattern on the outside top rear of the body between the cloth top panel and the rear window. They were stumped as to what purpose they served.
Further research revealed that the hole pattern was installed to insert the screws that held Murphy fasteners across the rear top of the car. It was for the awning Arbuckle had installed to give shade over the bar held within the leather trunk added to the back of the car. That's where Arbuckle would spend his time between takes.