It’s not the safest landmark to visit, but this lonely obelisk recalls a significant milestone in movie-making history. Here in Echo Park, along the 1700-1800 blocks of Glendale Blvd., once stood the five-acre Keystone Pictures Studio of Mack Sennett, silent filmdom’s King of Comedy.
Before the rise of Hollywood, the Echo Park/Silverlake area (then called Edendale) was the epicenter of the fledgling Los Angeles film industry. Focusing his vaudeville experience on the new medium, Sennett founded the studios with backing from Adam Kessel and Charles Bauman in 1912. He then churned out a steady stream of comedy shorts, entertaining movie-goers via the slapstick antics of the Keystone Kops, Fatty Arbuckle, Marie Dressler and eventually that “little tramp” Charlie Chaplin. The studio also launched the legendary careers of Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand and Ben Turpin.
A true pioneer, Sennett is credited with inventing that ever-classic screen gag, the pie in the face. More important, in 1914 he produced America’s first full-length motion picture comedy, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, starring Chaplin and Dressler. As much as the studio’s many accomplishments impressed audiences, however, they were less amusing to neighbors, who reportedly hated all the madcap mayhem Sennett regularly brought to their otherwise quiet residential streets.
Perhaps in answer to their prayers, Sennett left Keystone to embark on independent production in 1917, sending the studio into a gradual decline. It finally went belly-up two decades later. A nearby storage facility is now the last vestige of the old sound stages that once straddled both sides of Glendale Blvd.
Ironically, getting to the Sennett monument takes some serious effort. It’s securely locked behind a chain-link fence in a small office courtyard near the 2 Freeway’s southern terminus. The closest parking is a cul-de-sac west of the site on Duane Street, or further south on Clifford Street. A narrow sidewalk skirts the obelisk, but be warned: One false step and the countless cars zipping off the freeway could easily flatten you like a pancake — a pratfall Sennett would likely admire.
1855 Glendale Blvd.
Los Angeles, 90026
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Mabel Normand threw the first pie – not Mack Sennett!
Yes, it’s true she did the actual throwing. But at least two sources I read while researching this piece claim Sennett came up with the idea. — mi.