Blast From the Past

As the studio grew in the 1950s, there were occasional conflicts with the Laurel Canyon neighbors. Traffic congestion on the narrow hillside streets and a shortage of parking space forced officials to ferry workers in from Studio City and Hollywood on shuttle buses, according to Pierre Wilson, 73, a Woodland Hills film editor who rose to become director of operations at Lookout Mountain.

In 1954, neighbors complained that the armed guards who patrolled the studio and an electrified fence that ringed it ruined the residential feel of the neighborhood.

Air Force officials assured city officials that the guards had never had to draw their revolvers. They explained that the electric fence was designed only to sound a buzzer inside the guardhouse when touched, not to shock.

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Today, Wonderland Avenue residents know little about the studio's history except that it is rumored to have secret tunnels.

Neighbor Alfred Bendixen said Tuesday that a previous owner tried unsuccessfully to turn the site into a senior citizens medical facility after the Air Force moved out. Resident Carol Laporta remembered real estate agents advertising it as a potential compound for "rock stars or royalty."

Its current owners, Municipal Court Commissioner John Ladner and artist Mark Lipscomb, plan to attend tonight's ceremony to talk to old-timers about the tunnel rumors. "We've heard all the legends," Ladner said Tuesday. "If they've closed them off, they did it very skillfully."

Tonight's tribute, to be held at the American Film Institute, has been organized by filmmaker Peter Kuran, a Sylmar special effects expert. He learned of the Lookout Mountain cinematographers while producing a documentary called "Trinity and Beyond / The Atomic Bomb Movie."

"I was amazed at their work. I just think they deserve their place in history," said the 41-year-old Kuran--who is footing the $15,000 cost of tonight's event.

Among those attending will be Byron Ristvet, dean of the Department of Defense's Nuclear Weapons School, and Charles Demos, head of the Department of Energy's secret archives declassification program. A commendation from Secretary of Energy Federico Pena will be presented.

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"Nobody on this earth is ever going to take pictures of nuclear weapons going off again," Demos said.

Former Lookout Mountain cameraman Jack Cannon agrees.

"It was a time of history we should not look back in shame at," said Cannon, 72, of Newport Beach. "It was a time when we faced a threat from the Russians with the most powerful weapon in the world."

Lookout Mountain's movies--which are being made available to the public by Demos' group --might not have been artistic masterpieces, he said. But neither were the atomic blasts.

"They were not things of beauty, but technical accomplishments," he said of the detonations. "Being out there and getting the picture was an accomplishment too."