Miracle on La Cienega: Changing of a Water Building

For many years I have passed the handsome building on La Cienega Boulevard just north of Olympic and assumed that it was either a church or a convent. However, in Beverly Hills nothing is what it seems.

In their book “A Guide to Architecture in Los Angeles and Southern California,” David Gebhard and Robert Winter note this deception:

“You will at first think this huge poured-concrete structure with Romanesque detail and reasonably accurate facsimile of ‘La Giralda’ is a cathedral, and so it is in Los Angeles where water is sacred.” (Prof. Winter verifies that La Giralda is the famous bell tower of Seville cathedral; and indeed, the La Cienega building has an exquisite bell tower that has survived several earthquakes.)

Gebhard and Winter disclose that this building is not, in fact, a cathedral, but a processing plant of the Beverly Hills Water Department. It was built in 1927 and served that mundane purpose for decades; in recent years, though, it had been abandoned. It became a shelter for vagrants, and the inner walls were covered with graffiti.

In a miracle of restoration, this building will be opened this week as the Center for Motion Picture Study, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library. I say a miracle because it is the fate of most beautiful old buildings here to be torn down.

Recently, I received a letter from Karl Malden, president of the academy, inviting me to preview the refurbished building. “Since the project has interest for students of architecture, local history and motion pictures--three subjects that seem to crop up in your column with fair regularity--I thought perhaps I could coax you over to see the place.”

They have painted the building and added a wing, but the bell tower and the rose windows remain intact. It still looks like a church or convent. Inside it looks like a library in the making.

We made the tour with Bruce Davis, executive director of the academy, and Linda Mehr, library director. The excitement was contagious. The library’s rooms of files were already being filled.

“One of the world’s great special libraries is about to take up residence in the old La Cienega Park Waterworks building with its incomparable collections of books, still photographs, studio records, scripts and career papers of major filmmakers,” Malden had written.

Priceless materials have been donated to the library. The personal files of studio bosses, directors and stars will soon be available. Mehr opened a file to a letter in the handwriting of Sigmund Freud, expressing his approval of some movie whose psychological thesis matched his theories.

In recent years the library has rescued tons of priceless material that might otherwise have vanished. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer changed hands, the new boss was going to throw out all its still photographs. Malden said it took 11 years to clean and classify them.

A young librarian at a table was studiously going through a large stack of glossy photos. He said it was “leg art.” Indeed it was--hundreds of that staple of every studio--the glamorous young star photographed with a great portion of her legs showing. For years such photos were de rigueur. It was gratifying to know that they will not be lost.

Mehr said the library will have scripts of thousands of movies. “We have the working script of ‘Gunga Din,’ ” she said. “It still has sand in it.”

I said I hoped someone would have time to search Mae West’s scripts for me to settle once and for all the question of who said, “Get me out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.”

I have been researching that question for years. The common myth is that Robert Benchley said it. He did say it, or a version of it, in “The Major and the Minor,” for which Charles Brackett wrote the script. Benchley gave the credit to Brackett and Brackett said Charles Butterworth said it when he fell into the pool at the Garden of Allah. But I have witnesses that Mae West said it first in one of her movies, and I believe it.

I’m sure the library will yield greater treasures than that, but for a great library, no scrap of information is too small. The library will operate a phone service from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to answer questions from the public.

You want to know whether Bogart actually said “Play it again, Sam,” in “Casablanca”? Ask them.

“We’re doing something for the future,” Malden said. “We want to show them what we did, why we did it and how we did it.”

Mehr had some pictures of the interior before it was refurbished, showing walls covered with graffiti. One said “E = MC 1/2.”

“In Beverly Hills,” Davis said, “even the graffiti is high class.”

Malden took me and Davis to lunch at the Four Seasons. When he paid the bill the waitress said, “I wondered if you were going to use your American Express card.”

It was a misconception, Malden confided to me, that he advertises the card on TV. “I only pitch the travelers’ checks.”

He used the card.