“That spot is hallowed f*cking ground.” So says Bettye McCartt (Juno Temple) in the premiere episode of “The Offer” while describing the Bronson Gate at Paramount Pictures, where a ready-for-her-close-up Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) drove onto the fabled lot in the 1950 classic “Sunset Boulevard.” Truth be told, virtually every square inch of the studio is hallowed ground, though! From the Bronson Gate to Lucy Park to New York Street, each of the facility’s 56 acres is thoroughly steeped in Hollywood history.
The only major studio still located in Tinseltown, the Paramount Pictures juggernaut as we know it today dates back to 1912 when Hungarian producer Adolph Zukor established his first production company, Famous Players, and began releasing films via the Paramount Pictures Corporation, a distribution concern owned by William W. Hodkinson. As detailed in the book “Los Angeles Attractions,” “Paramount also distributed the films of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, which was formed in 1913 by vaudeville musician Jesse Lasky, glove salesman Samuel Goldfish (later Goldwyn) and actor and playwright Cecil B. DeMille. In 1916 Zukor and Lasky merged their two companies, resulting in a production giant called Famous Players-Lasky. Zukor quickly bought out Goldfish and managed to oust Hodkinson and take control of his company, together with its name.” And thus, Paramount Pictures was born.
Initially headquartered in a small barn at Vine St. and Selma Ave., Lasky and Zukor found themselves in need of more space by 1926 and promptly snapped up United Studios, located about a mile away, to serve as Paramount’s new home base. All of the lot’s production buildings were subsequently razed and the then 26-acre site was transformed into a state-of-the-art facility with seven brand new soundstages, contemporary offices and a myriad of sets and backdrops, a project that took eight months to complete at a cost of $750,000. Hollywood real estate prices were soaring at the time, causing most major production companies to flee to less expensive parts of Los Angeles, like Burbank and Culver City. The migration became so prevalent that a 1926 Associated Press article declared, “Hollywood is doomed as the world’s motion picture capital . . . There will not be a single film plant of magnitude left in Hollywood.” But Paramount certainly defied that prediction!
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Instead of downsizing or relocating, the production giant only continued to expand and grow, eventually becoming the monolith of movie-making magic it is today. As The New York Times espouses, Paramount, more than any other studio, “symbolizes Hollywood itself.” And that is not hyperbole. For lovers of Old Hollywood especially, there is perhaps no place more sacred. Just a few of the gems lensed at the historic facility include “Rear Window,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Chinatown,” “Citizen Kane,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Graduate,” “Star Trek,” “Cheers,” “Mommie Dearest,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Ghost,” and, of course, “The Godfather.”
When the 1972 drama was in production, Paramount was famously being run by eccentric raconteur and bon vivant Robert Evans (Matthew Goode), who decided to take a chance on a young engineer-turned-producer named Albert S. Ruddy (Miles Teller), handing him the reins for what turned out to be one of the most revered and important films in the history of cinema. “The Offer” chronicles his dogged pursuit in bringing the heralded tale from the page to the screen.
The heartwarming series, which just wrapped its ten-episode run on Paramount Plus last week, gloriously showcases the studio, with the lot servings as an authentic backdrop for the action, as well as a main figure central to the storyline – the legendary enterprise looming large over both the characters and the actors who play them. In a behind-the-scenes featurette, Temple detailed shooting one particular scene that took place on a golf cart, saying, “We got to zip around the Paramount lot on a Sunday when it was empty, so you fully were transported into their universe. It was a pinch-me moment. It makes all my hair stand up!” With its storied history, fabulous façades and unique ability to transport audiences and visitors alike, the studio truly is a magical place!
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake Thanks to its many original buildings and overall historic look, Paramount, in its natural state, was largely ready for its close-up on the series. But being that it is also a living, breathing, working lot, with all the modern equipment, studio vehicles and relentless activity that entails, production designer Laurence Bennett certainly had his work cut out for him in bringing the place back to its late 1960s/early 1970s self.
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Image Credit: Lindsay Blake To complete the transformation, all present-day signage was removed from the studio’s landscape (both physically and digitally), as was all contemporary ephemera, including bulky HVAC systems. Bennett also had to contend with one very topical advancement, as well – COVID testing tents, which were newly installed throughout the facility and had to be strategically shot around or hidden from view of the cameras.
Laurence, who garnered an Academy Award nomination for his work on the 1920s-set “The Artist,” proved up to the task, seamlessly setting the lot back to its “Me Decade” look.
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Image Credit: Paramount The “retro”-fitting included reinstating the Bronson Gate as the studio’s main entrance. The ornate wrought-iron piece welcomed visitors to the lot – and kept unwanted lookie-loos at bay – from Paramount’s inception until the late 1980s, when the site underwent a significant expansion. During the project, Marathon St., which had previously fronted the property, was annexed and new structures built up around it, resulting in the gate now being situated deep inside the facility’s grounds. Though it no longer served as an egress, it was, thankfully, left intact and today stands as an enchanted nod to Paramount’s storied past.
The instantly recognizable structure was featured numerous times on “The Offer,” including in an early scene in episode one in which Evans is shown driving onto the lot.
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Image Credit: Paramount To create Ruddy’s office suite, a sprawling multi-room space, Bennett looked to the Arzner Building, a three-story complex in the center of the lot that dates back to 1926. Designed by architect A. J. Kooken, the structure was initially known as the Dressing Room Building and provided changing areas for some of Paramount’s most revered stars, including Mae West. It was renamed in 2018 in honor of director Dorothy Arzner, who, according to Variety, not only invented the boom microphone but “helmed more studio films than any other woman in history.” Ironically, “The Godfather” director Francis Ford Coppola, once a student of Arzner’s, was on hand for the dedication ceremony.
Utilizing the interiors and exteriors of the former dressing room space, in lieu of a soundstage-built set, allowed Bettye and Al to be filmed seamlessly walking in and out of Ruddy’s office for numerous shots.
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Image Credit: Paramount The lot’s famous Blue Sky Tank also cameos in the production. The massive reservoir, mainly used for water scenes, can hold over 900,000 gallons of liquid (it takes an entire day to fill!) and sits in front of a 175-by-75-foot backdrop that can be painted or green-screened to suit a production’s needs. In the case of “The Offer,” it was fashioned with a gorgeous blue sky, which Evans walks by in the first episode. The location, which serves as an employee parking lot when not in use, has also appeared in such films as “The Ten Commandments” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” as well as in the season five episode of “Cheers” titled “The Proposal,” in which Sam Malone (Ted Danson) proposes to Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) while aboard a boat.
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Image Credit: Paramount While many scenes from “The Godfather” were captured on location along the streets of New York, due to the pandemic it was safer (not to mention far more economical) for the cast and crew of “The Offer” to stay in one city for the duration of the shoot. And Paramount provided an ideal Manhattan stand-in in the form of its New York Street! To call the area a “street,” though, is a huge misnomer being that it comprises five acres worth of towering façades built to represent eight distinct Big Apple neighborhoods, including Greenwich Village, Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. The large-scale backdrop is so massive and so thoroughly representative of NYC that even such shows as “Friends” and “Seinfeld,” which were shot at Warner Bros. Studio and Radford Studio Center, respectively, made use of it during their time on the air. (Interestingly, downtown L.A., as well as the New York-themed backlots at Universal Studios and Warner Bros. were also utilized by “The Offer” for various Manhattan-set segments.)
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Image Credit: Paramount The exterior of Evans’ longtime office, a lower-level space in the Lubitsch Building that stands out from its neighbors thanks to a swanky wooden door and gold signage, was also featured heavily on “The Offer,” as was the adjacent Production Park. And while Bob’s office interior, an ostentatious spot befitting the former mogul, still exists just beyond said door, the production team felt the room, with its extensive vanity wall and chocolate brown paint, was a bit too “on the nose,” according to Bennett. So a set loosely based upon the space but quite “tamed down” was instead utilized for scenes in which Evans expertly hobnobs his way through executive meetings.
Those hoping to live out their own “The Offer” fantasies in person will be thrilled to know that Paramount is once again open to the public for daily tours after an extended closure due to the pandemic. The two-hour experience invites visitors for a comprehensive up-close and personal view of the production facility and all of its historic spots. At $63 a pop, it’s truly an offer that fans can’t refuse!