I have only been living in Los Angeles since the summer of 2011 but I am still in awe of the sign’s iconography and historical legacy. Thank you for offering such an informative take on the restoration process.

The sign’s history is also prominently featured on the PARAMOUNT studio tour, interestingly. It still functions as a signifier of Hollywood tourism.

My own favorites:
“The Day of the Locust”, photographed in 1975 by Conrad Hall ASC. is one of the best novels-into-films I know. A tour guide tells the story of a failed actress who commits suicide by jumping off the “H”. Although a dark satire of Hollywood, the novelist Nathanel West doesn’t exaggerate much in this scene. He bases it on the real incident John mentions in his blog.

“Chaplin”, photographed in 1992 by Sven Nykvist ASC, shows Kevin Kline as Douglas Fairbanks pissing on the base of the sign. True or not, it’s a great image.

“The Rocketeer”, photographed by Hiro Narita ASC in 1991, explains what happened to the original “Hollywoodland” sign. Timothy Dalton plays an Errol Flynn type who is a Nazi spy. While flying around with a jet pack on his back, he crashes into the Hollywoodland sign, shortening it to Hollywood.

As with pretty much all my thoughts, I wasn’t the first to wonder about the Hollywood sign’s appearances in the movies. See these websites for more:
http://www.hollywoodsign.org/category/the-sign-in-the-movies
http://hollywoodsigntrip.com/hollywood-sign-movies.shtml

Then another hackneyed thought came to mind. Cities around the world have their own Hollywood signs: New York’s Statue of Liberty , San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, Paris’ Eiffel Tower, London’s Big Ben. Cairo’s Pyramids. Until recently, filming Chicago meant setting up on the south bank of the Chicago River across Michigan Ave from the site the Fort Dearborn Massacre of 1812 when the indigenous Potawatamis decided they wanted their land back. Shooting west up the river, the gothic [for its politics?] Tribune Tower and white terra cotta-glazed Wrigley Building are on the right. On the left, London Guarantee building where the London House was, a jazz club where greats like Coleman Hawkins, Sarah Vaughn, Oscar Peterson, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Teddy Wilson and Gene Krupa recorded live albums. The building is topped by a beaux-arts dome on columns which was easily lifted off and smashed to the street 22 floors below by the evil Megatron in “Transformers 3″ photographed by Amir Mokri in 2010. Just off the cross-hairs you’d find the Marina Towers twin corn cobs from which Steve McQueen and his car took 10-story divein “The Hunter” while Fred Koenenkamp ASC photographed in 1979. Near the top of the frame, the river splits into the North and South Branches. Before 1900 both ran together into Lake Michigan. To keep the growing industry up river, famously including the Chicago Stock Yards, locks were built at the mouth of the river to keep the polluted water from running into the lake, the source of the city’s drinking water. The river’s flow was reversed and remains so today. We framed that shot so many times over the years, I think you could find it by the three holes in the concrete made by the points of a tripod.

But with the opening of Millennium Park in 2004 with a Frank Ghery-designed bandshell, Crown Fountain, two LED towers on which 50′ high digital video portraits pucker and spit real water, comes the new Hollywood favorite: “Cloud Gate” aka “The Bean” – a three-story steel sculpture by Anish Kapoor..

Since its unveiling, “The Bean” has been photographed by a number of ASC cinematographers, including Phaedon Papamichael, Alar Kivilo, Don Burgess and Rogier Stoffers as well as Peter Bijou and Eric Edwards for their respective films “The Weather Man”, “The Lake House”, “The Source”, “The Vow”, “Derailed” and “The Break-Up”.

Finally, not to be outdone by Musso & Frank, Chicago’s Berghoff Restaurant, established 1898, still stands under its neon sign.Berghoff’s is open Mondays.

JOHN’S REPLY: Pete, thanks for the past and current movie tour of Chicago landmarks. During the 80s, I also photographed several films in and around Chicago– before Toronto became a usurper and cheaper stand-in for almost every major American city. NO place looks like Chicago– the capital of American architecture. There are just so many iconic views of the city– and let’s not forget the “El.”

JOHN’S REPLY: Richard, at least we still have “Musso & Frank Grill” and its neon banner “Since 1919 Oldest in Hollywood.” And it’s still closed Mondays.