The Break-In (part one)

The Break-In (part one)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

So there I am, in L.A., minding my own business, and lo and behold, what offer do I get? To see the Ennis-Brown house. It's that Frank Lloyd Wright freako thing (I don't like Wright's designs-pretentious, ostentatious, and just plain weird) that I told you about last week. My friend, Scott, who shall remain nameless, said,
"Hey, let's go to the Ennis house."
"The what?"
"The Ennis house…you know, the house where they filmed The House on Haunted Hill…they also used it in Blade Runner. Let's go see it."
"Why?" I said, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.
"It'll be fun."
"Does it cost anything?"
"No, they're in the process of refurbishing it. It sits on the top of this hill overlooking Los Angeles. I thought we'd go by and see it."
"Well, okay," I said. He likes that kind of thing, and who knows, it might be interesting. So off we go, barreling down Sunset Boulevard, searching for the house that horror icon, Vincent Price, killed people in.
It was built in 1924 and has been seen in several films, the ones I mentioned above being only two. It looks kind of like a Mayan temple with a tall block wall surrounding it. It has a chain at the front of the driveway, no doubt to keep people from parking on it. However, it doesn't keep people from walking on it – which of course, is what I did.
"I don't think you should go up there," said Scott as he watched me step over the chain and walk up to the gate, also chained and pad locked.
"Don't worry, I'm from Oklahoma," I said. I figured I could always just say I was a tourist and, well, "…gall-dang, officer, I's just a-havin' ma'self a look-see at wun'nim sher-nuff famous houses whaar a real life movie'uz made." How could they arrest me? I'm big, blonde, and oafish. I was raised in L.A., but I can pull off the accent quite well.
Scott on the other hand, is average sized, has dark brown hair, and is an Italian from New Jersey. The only accent he can pull off is Tony Soprano. If worse came to worse, I'd planned to tell them that this guy here told me they had a real live Aztec burial site that was made into a hotel and for twenty bucks he would show it to me.
Anyway, clearly there was no one there so I stood in front of the gate and my good buddy took pictures.
"Okay, let's go before someone sees us," Scott said, glancing around.
"What, I'm just looking inside the gate."
"What if a cop happens by?" he said, gravitating toward his car.
"If he asks us to leave, we'll leave."
With more than a little trepidation, Scott let his camera dangle from his neck, looked up and down the street, then stepped over the chain. After I had vigorously checked to see if the pad locks would come loose, we looked through the gate. The house and garage, which had a small apartment or game room or something above it, were separated by a sizeable courtyard.
"Okay, we'd better go," said my dearest yet reluctant friend, and started to leave. I tried the locks again. He stepped back a ways and looked over the whole place. That's when he made his mistake.
"You know," he said, "That wall has a ledge. Someone could climb it and get on to the walkway inside the property."
What was I to do? Here I was, a stranger, in a strange land, with an Oklahoma driver's license. The worse that could happen – to me anyway – would probably be a slap on the wrist and a bus ticket back to Tornado Alley.
So I climbed the wall while Scott did a mild impression of Barney Fife.
I was impressed. The walkway was about ten feet wide and bridged the distance between the garage house and the main house. It overlooked the courtyard and had a spectacular view of L.A.
"You ought to see it up here," I called down to Scott as I looked around.
"Let's get out of here."
"Why? there's no one here."
"Joe, we're trespassing." He wasn’t smiling. "The neighbors are probably dialing 911 right now. We could be arrested."
"Hey, get a picture," I said and struck a pose.
I could tell he was nervous. He looked like a cross-dresser at a redneck rally. He shook his head, looked around, and snapped the picture.
"Okay, I got it, now can we go?"
"Wow, there's a pool down here." I figured I’d try dangling a carrot. "You really should see this, it's great." I knew if I played it just right, I could get him up there. Scott is an intelligent, educated professional and very straight laced. But he's also an avid film buff who loves to see homes of movie stars, graves of movie stars, things like that. I knew if I made it enticing enough, he wouldn't be able to resist seeing the very house where so many movies were made.
But would he?
Sorry, that’ll have to wait until next week. I'm out of time for this one, but I'll try to wrap it up in my following column. Until then, let me give you some advice…stay out of unoccupied landmark houses,

Keck