Beverly Sunset

The Beverly Sunset, home to the Sweet Spells and Villains in Vogue shops, was modeled on the Warner Theater built in Beverly Hills in the early '30s. Stepping through the doors under the marquee, the candy shop is the first space you enter. Here, it plays the role of the concessions counter in the grand movie palace.

Continue down to Villains in Vogue (the exterior of which is based on The Ice House in Pasadena), and you find yourself in the theater. Curtains are parted on one side, showcasing the main attraction, an award-winning merchandise selection.

On the opposite side of the shop, look up and you'll find the theater's projection booth, complete with reels of film. It's showtime!

Legends of Hollywood

One of the first theaters Guests encounter as they tour the Theater District of Sunset Boulevard is Legends of Hollywood. Based on the Academy Theater in Inglewood, California, this classic example of Art Moderne design was built in 1939 to host the Academy Awards (although the Oscars never did move there).

Coming Attractions posters outside the theater advertise a wide variety of films soon to be playing at Legends, from comedies (Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and thrillers (Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca) to gangster pictures (Angels with Dirty Faces) and musicals (Broadway Melody of 1940).

Tonight, Legends of Hollywood is hosting a grand premiere. The red carpet has been rolled out, and ritzy cars are pulling up to the theater to deliver their glamorous celebrity passengers for the evening's event.

For those who don't already have a ticket through the studio or their publicist, just stop by the Box Office:

The beauty of the theater carries over to the inside, with bold Art Deco styling in the flooring and fixtures:

A graphic mural along the back wall of the interior depicts each of the movie palaces represented at Disney's Hollywood Studios, along with the grandest of them all, Grauman's Chinese.

Hollywood vs. Sunset

The "Hollywood That Never Was" at Disney's Hollywood Studios is comprised primarily of Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. Collectively, these two neighborhoods transport us to the Golden Age of Tinseltown, a period primarily couched in the 1930s and '40s.

At first blush, this whole stretch of the park may seem pretty much the same, but the two areas are actually quite different. Hollywood Boulevard is representative of the Business District and calls up an earlier Hollywood when the town was full of promise and rapid expansion. It starts with Sid Cahuenga, who was here before the movie biz, and continues to the Pacific Electric trolley depot. One can literally go anywhere from here.

Sunset Boulevard has a completely different character. For starters, it's the Theater District. This is the place where grand movie palaces and live performance venues can be found; everything from Legends of Hollywood, based on the old Academy Theater:

To the Theater of the Stars, whose proscenium was inspired by the concentric arches of the band shell at the Hollywood Bowl:

Sunset Boulevard is set in the latter part of Hollywood's Golden Age. Throughout much of this corner of the park, from Rosie's All-American Cafe to the recruitment posters, it is most definitely the 1940s. War time. The world is changing. Hollywood will never be the same. The street does culminate, after all, in a dead end... an abandoned hotel.

But there's also hope and optimism here. Rosie and her neighbors have planted Victory Gardens in support of our boys on the front lines. New enterprises are beginning, and a degree of normalcy (Hollywood normal, at least) can be found in the glamour of a red carpet premiere.

The show must go on, and the Hollywood that never was always will be.

The Red Car

Hollywood is a growing metropolis. What better way to get around it all than by taking a trip on one of Pacific Electric's Big Red Cars (Pacific Electric, a real public transportation company that thrived in Hollywood during the '20s and '30s, was also the trolley system depicted in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?).

Well, you can dream anyway. The Red Car Trolley popped up a couple of times in Disney's Hollywood Studios history as a potential attraction. It was part of early concepts for the park and was later proposed for Sunset Boulevard. In the end, the trolleys themselves never materialized (a version is being planned for Disney's California Adventure by 2012), but details alluding to them can be found throughout the park.

Down at the corner of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards is a large Spanish Mission-style structure. On the Hollywood side, it's L.A. Cinema Storage, but around the corner on Sunset it becomes the garage for the Pacific Electric Trolley Co. Notice the oversize door for the trolleys that opens up onto the street, as well as the Pacific Electric logo at the top of the building. Pacific Electric World's Wonderland Lines - Comfort, Speed, Safety (and there's that year again... 1928).

This corner of Disney's Hollywood Studios is a literal crossroads. It's the first point at which Guests entering the park have a decision to make as to the direction their next adventure will take. It also plays the role of crossroads in our story.

Hollywood Junction at Sunset Boulevard, aside from being a great spot to check attraction wait times or make dining reservations, is dressed out as a trolley depot here in old Hollywood. Below the Pacific Electric-branded clock is the departure board, letting us know how long it might take for each of the listed destinations.

A map on the back wall details the complete Pacific Electric Railway route, serving all of Southern California.

Schedules for each of the routes are available at the desk. None of these routes serve your specific destination? There's a direct line here so you can phone a cab. They'll even hold your luggage for you on the patio while you wait.

If the Big Red Car is your transportation of choice, there's a Car Stop right there on the corner and a line running straight down Sunset.

While a trolley attraction never became a reality at Disney's Hollywood Studios, that doesn't mean there isn't a Red Car to be found. Down Sunset near the Theater of the Stars stands a merchandise cart in the form of a Pacific Electric trolley car.

The route ID on the side of the trolley lists Hollywood, Sunset and Gower Street (the cross street that runs in front of The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror toward Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith), and the number of the trolley - 694 - is a tribute to the June 1994 addition of Sunset Boulevard to the Studios landscape.

Alas, the Red Cars weren't meant to last in Hollywood. Just as talkies replaced silent cinema, the automobile did in the trolley system. In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Judge Doom and Cloverleaf bought the Red Car just to shut them down and build freeways. Here in "the Hollywood that never was," the tracks have simply been paved over. Near the corner of Sunset and Gower, portions of the asphalt have worn away, revealing the original brick and trolley tracks beneath. If only we could hop back in time and take a ride...

Sunset Hills Estates

No one may have checked in at the Hollywood Tower Hotel in some time, but that doesn't mean this part of town is completely deserted. As big a draw as the hotel was in its heyday, it attracted plenty of development in the area, from businesses to residential subdivisions. Among the most sought after lots were those in the Sunset Hills Estates.

Established in 1928 (a popular date for Imagineering references, considering it was the year Mickey Mouse made his debut), Sunset Hills Estates was sold as "The Movie Colony's Most Prestigious Address."

Of course, in the 1940s period in which our story takes place, these luxury homes with incredible views can be had for as little as $9000. Interested? Just call Hollywood Realty at KLondike 5 - 6189 (a personal Disney reference: 6/1/89 was my first day on the job with The Walt Disney Company).

Or perhaps you would prefer to reside amongst the true glitz and glamour. "Dream Homes in Dream Land" are available on what is touted as "The Finest Property in Southern California," Hollywoodland.

Hollywoodland was the name of a real estate development in the Hollywood Hills, started in 1923 (another significant Disney date, as that was the year the Company was founded). The now-famous Hollywood sign actually started as an advertisement for this community, originally reading "HOLLYWOODLAND." The sign became a landmark for the area and was left up even after the development was sold out. In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce set out to refurbish and rebuild the sign, opting to remove the "LAND" in favor of the more commonly recognized "HOLLYWOOD."