Stage 3
Hal Roach Studios
Stage 3
The Lucky Corner summarizes Hal Roach studio paperwork in which this stage is called Stage 3, and in the 1932 datebook Stage #3.
For Forgotten Babies (Our Gang, production G-14), the 1932 studio datebook lists Saturday, December 10 as the last shooting day: Spanky's house on Stage #3, production finished. On the preceding studio days the same house set is listed on Stage #2. The page's location note reads Hal E. Roach Studios, Culver City.
Mail and Female (production K-15) was filmed from October 22 to 27, 1937. Interior footage and the porch at Darla's house were shot on Stage 3, and the barn on Stage 4. On October 26, the fourth day, the living-room sequence continued on the interior Darla's house set on Stage 3. The call sheet and the daily film report agree.
Rushin' Ballet was filmed from March 9 to 13, 1937, mostly on Stage 4. The production sheets disagree about the dance-school set and list it as Stage 3 or Stage 4. The sheet for March 11 places the interior dance-school set on Stage 3.
Our Gang Follies of 1938 (production G-39) was filmed from November 3 to 15, 1937. The interior and exterior of Club Spanky and the interior opera house were shot on Stage 3. The cellar and tenement alley were shot on Stage 4. Studio documentation contradicts itself on the exterior opera house and the interior cellar backstage, listing them on Stage 3 and on Stage 4. The crew production sheet for the final day records the exterior opera-house stage door and the interior cellar backstage on Stage 3.
A YourProps listing describes an original Hal Roach Studios, Inc. daily production sheet dated September 27, 1935. The seller writes that the sheet lists that day's filming of the Thelma Todd short Top Flat on Stage 3. The same listing names directors Jack Jevne and William H. Terhune.
A Hollywood column carried by the National Enterprise Association, and quoted on the Tralfaz blog, recalls the lot after the Army Air Forces took it over as the 18th Army Air Forces Base Unit, the Motion Picture Unit, in Culver City. The column says that before the war the Our Gang company studied in a little red schoolhouse next to Stage 3. NewspaperArchive indexes the same column on page 5 of the Ironwood Daily Globe for March 27, 1945.
The lot overview: Hal Roach Studios.
Sources
Two sentences from the Wikipedia article “Hal Roach Studios,” CC BY-SA:
The studio lot, at 8822 Washington Boulevard in Culver City, California, United States, was built in 1920, at which time Rolin was renamed to Hal E. Roach Studios.
In August 1963, the lot was demolished after several auctions and sales of the company's assets.
- Hal Roach Studios, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
- The Lucky Corner, Forgotten Babies. theluckycorner.com/rmt/121.html.
- The Lucky Corner, Mail And Female. theluckycorner.com/rmt/161.html.
- The Lucky Corner, Rushin' Ballet. theluckycorner.com/rmt/155.html.
- The Lucky Corner, Our Gang Follies Of 1938. theluckycorner.com/rmt/162.html.
- YourProps, Hal Roach Studios production sheet for Top Flat, 27 September 1935. yourprops.com.
- Tralfaz, Trigger Joe, 25 February 2012, quoting a National Enterprise Association Hollywood column. tralfaz.blogspot.com/2012/02/trigger-joe.html.
- Ironwood Daily Globe, 27 March 1945, p. 5. newspaperarchive.com.