Here’s another shot of the Elite Laundry, located at 14519 Sylvan Street in Van Nuys. (It was described in more detail in the previous post).
Agent Grayson has managed to get a job at the laundry and is in a good spot to watch incoming customers. He watches as Dr. Neva, one of the senior scientists, drops off her laundry.
Then … He observes the man at the counter slip one of her handkerchiefs into a package, picked up shortly afterwards by Krebs, one of the spy ring members. Below, Krebs is seen leaving the laundry which back then was one of many small shops and stores lining the block.
and Now, the building that housed those stores looks very different now. It dates back to 1922 but was extensively changed in 1988.
Then … Krebs walks on, passing a large plumbing and appliance store that conveniently displayed its name on the window …
and Now, a street directory identified this location - the J. Hokom plumbing showroom at 860 N.Highland Avenue - but it’s in Hollywood, miles from Van Nuys. A not unusual geographical hiccup for the moviemakers but confusing for locals in the audience. The building is still there today.
The FBI agents have no intention of allowing any more secrets to be spirited out of the country so they waylay Krebs, snatch the package and take the handkerchief to a lab for analysis. Sure enough, it yields yet another formula.
It’s not easy being an FBI agent - Krebs, still bruised from his earlier roughing-up from O’Hara, turns the tables and regains possession of the handkerchief while dishing out revengeful rough stuff. He leaves the agents to his henchmen … “You know what to do …” but a brave, unfortunately sacrificial, intervention by Grayson’s landlady enables their escape.
Braun is picked up at the airport and driven straight to a clandestine meeting at a local store.
Then … The meeting takes place in town. The first clue that led CitySleuth to the location was a glimpse of blurry ‘Grain & Feed Co.’ lettering on the side of a nearby store as the car drives by.
Then … They turn left and pull up outside the Lakeview Art Shoppe, a fictitious name but filmed at a real place across the street from the Grain & Feed store. The clue to that building is its blade sign, Pacific Finance Loans, a company that had several branches throughout California.
… and Now, here’s the same building today … on the corner of Friar Street and Vesper Ave in Van Nuys in Southern California; Pacific Finance Loans was at 14560 Friar Street. It made loans for a number of uses including furniture and this appears to be their furniture display space at the Van Nuys branch. The building dates back to 1946, now addressed as 14554 Friar. The business across the street back then was the Van Nuys Grain & and Feed Store at 14555 Friar Street.
Here are two 1948 newspaper ads confirming the location. (Apparently the newspaper typesetter suffered from dyslexia … Feed & Grain instead of Grain and Feed).
In a back room in the Art Shoppe Braun meets with members of the spy ring (including, in an early role, Raymond Burr on the left) and informs them that he is taking over operations now that Comrade Radchek has been eliminated.
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.
Then … Malatesta is near death in a local hospital. As his family and the police wait to see him the window view gives the barest clue as to this location. Not much to go on, but CitySleuth recognized that row of Spanish Colonial-styled houses visible across the flat rooftops in the foreground.
… and Now … These houses, located at 1314 to 1330 Taylor Street in Nob Hill (map), are the ones in the above window view.
Those same houses were the site of the rooftop chase in the opening scene, below, of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic movie ‘Vertigo”. Note the same Spanish Colonial roofline facade.
But where was the hospital? It turns out that the only place with that view would be the rooftop of an apartment building located around the corner and tall enough to see over the flat rooftops opposite. There are two such buildings, 1134 and 1142 Jackson Street. Obviously then the hospital scene was filmed in a studio, or elsewhere, making use of a photo taken from the rooftop of one of these buildings to imply the location, a common movie trick.
Here’s 1134 and 1142 Jackson, both tall enough for a rooftop photographer to have a clear view across the street towards the Taylor Street buildings.
Malatesta asks to speak with Joe alone. He confides to him that after confession the priest wanted him to go to the police; he killed him to spare his family the stigma that would follow. Joe forgives him and leaves the room while the last rites were being given.
The movie ends when the police, needing a confession to pin the murder on Malatesta, want to know what he said … Joe chose to preserve the family’s integrity, telling them “The accident beat me to it - I didn’t find out a thing”.
