Wardrobe
Hal Roach Studios
Wardrobe
Jim Dallape and Robert A. Winslow’s lot key numbers the Hal Roach lot and matches each number to production screenshots. Number 34 is the “Hal Roach Studios Wardrobe Department and Property Stage building”: wardrobe department and property stage in one building.
The key does not split those two names across two buildings. The wardrobe department and the property stage share number 34.
It identifies that building from production shots of Sons of the Desert (October 1933), Nurse to You (early summer 1935), and a color production shot of Swiss Miss (early 1938). The key states that dates in parentheses are shooting dates of the films cited.
On the same list, number 33 is a false brick front over the property-storage building, and number 35 is the dressing rooms for featured and day players. Number 34 stands between those entries as the wardrobe and property-stage building.
Marc Wanamaker’s April 1920 account of the Culver City lot names the administration building on Washington Boulevard, one large open stage, an enclosed stage, a set-storage building, a laboratory, and department bungalows. It does not name a wardrobe house.
That April account also describes a back lot of sets used over and over. By May 1920 it adds a pool water tank and some other departmental buildings, still without naming a wardrobe house.
Wanamaker places the studio at 8822 West Washington Boulevard, at Washington and National. The lot key puts building 34 on that Hal Roach lot and does not give the wardrobe building a street address of its own.
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.
- Marc Wanamaker, “Remembering the Hal Roach Studios,” Culver City Historical Society, 1 April 2006. culvercityhistoricalsociety.org.
- Jim Dallape and Robert A. Winslow, Hal Roach backlot tour key, building 34. lordheath.com.
