Walk A Crooked Mile - Dirty Laundry
Then … When the scientists leave the lab after their weekly meeting FBI agents follow them and see Dr. Toni Neva drop off laundry at the Elite Laundry in town.
… and Now, this scene was filmed in Van Nuys, Southern California. CitySleuth thanks reader NotCom for finding it. The store was the Half-Hour Laundromat, renamed for the movie, at 14519 Sylvan Street, part of a group of stores that have since been replaced by the building housing the Van Nuys campus of the Los Angeles ORT College (the campus closed operations in 2018). But those stores seen down the block from it have survived; the Country Home Shop (neon sign, above) at 14513 Sylvan is currently the Solares Express Shipping Co.
Then … As she gets out of the car we get a clear look at businesses on the opposite side of the street, including a typewriter store. Note too the sign at right advertising the Valley Times. Two good clues as to the location.
… and Now, these four adjoining stores are still there. Van Nuys Typewriter Co., above, was at 14514 Sylvan which since 1962 has housed Luigi’s Tailoring, owned by Luigi Della Ripa, known to locals as “Mr. Van Nuys”. Over on the right hand side at 14518 Sylvan was the Van Nuys Valley Times office (which explains the poster), now housing VIP Printing. Moisant’s barber shop was between them at 14516 Sylvan and there’s still a barber shop there today - darned impressive, that’s a span of 72 years.
The taller building at the far left of the Then image above was the California Bank Building on the corner of Van Nuys Blvd. This vintage photo captured it in 1949, the year after the movie was filmed. The bank sign is on the Van Nuys Blvd side; the Sylvan Street side looks just as it did in the movie shot. The Country General Store now occupies a banalized version of the building (above).
Meanwhile, a third painting by suspect Igor Braun has been intercepted; it concealed a stolen formula which had been revealed for the first time ever in that earlier scientists’ meeting. It appears that one of the scientists is the mole. But which one?
(The preceding painting, described in an earlier post, was of a hotel in Montmartre, Paris. Could this, another French scene, be of that same area? Speculation, yet to be verified).
The realization that laundry drops from the lab may be a weak link in the security system prompts agent Grayson to apply for a job at the Elite Laundry to keep a watch on the activity there.