The New York City of the 1960s gets a lot of retro on-screen love, courtesy of "Mad Men" and many other series and films, but Los Angeles was also quite the memorable and stylish spot five decades ago.
Nope, we're not talking about the Sunset Strip and the music scene and the flower children, though the late '60s definitely gave our city a distinct and important flavor. We're talking about the Southern California of the early 1960s, a still-prim dream place brimming with Eamesian, swimming-pool-sparkle charms. Lawns and long cars and diving boards and sunglasses.
It's a place and time not often depicted on the big screen, funny enough, but Angelenos will get to see their city in full, early-'60s bloom in "Saving Mr. Banks," a new film examining the sometimes bristly relationship between Walt Disney and the P.L. Travers, the author of "Mary Poppins."
That's fun, but the local love runs deep in the trailer, from an early version of LAX to a drive through the hills to studio lots to swimming pools to, wait for it, Disneyland from a half century back. (Question, though: Has Disneyland changed all that much over the years, given that nostalgia is one of its tenets? Beyond the additions of new attractions and Toontown, we mean. Discuss.)
But one of the nice surprises of the trailer, and a house that is in no way reflective of SoCal in the 1960s, is the 1887 Hale House, the oh-so-colorful Victorian inside Heritage Square. Can we call the Hale an iconic LA building? We just did. It shows up A LOT, capital letters A LOT, in photos. That equals iconic in our book.
See if you can see it -- it show up, briefly, later in the trailer -- as well as a lot of other sunny LA hallmarks.
Oh, and can you visit the Hale House? You can and should.
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
