Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1151081
44 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2019 Show (1960-68), Cambern got into the habit of occasionally stopping by Musso's during lunch on Fridays. "Of course, their famous martinis came into play on those Fridays," he recalls. "There was work that had to be done, and I wanted to get it done properly, so one martini was my limit on those days — for the simple reason I really wanted to make use of that afternoon." Later, when Cambern began working as a picture editor on the cutting-edge films made by BBS Productions, based at Columbia Pictures — including Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969) and Jack Nicholson's Drive, He Said (1971) — the meals at Musso's continued. "That was usually on a Friday afternoon, and usually after we'd had a few tokes from a joint outside," the editor says with a laugh. "So we'd be ravishingly hungry. We'd eat everything in sight. Baskets of sourdough bread with tons of butter would disappear." In the 1960s and '70s, picture editor Nancy Frazen recalls piling into Musso's with her brother, picture editor Robert Frazen, ACE, and their father, picture editor and former Editors Guild President (1979-80) Stanley Frazen, ACE. Their dish of choice? Flannel cakes. "It was always a special occasion for us when Dad would suggest, usually spontaneously, 'Let's go to Musso's; let's get some flannel cakes,'" she remembers. But it wasn't just the breakfast treat that appealed to brother and sister. "It was the going to Musso's and either sitting in a booth or frequently sitting at the counter," Frazen adds. "It was not only a special treat, but you felt like you were somewhere else outside of the norm of Los Angeles." AN OLD-SCHOOL VIBE Frazen was not the only member of the film community to observe that Musso & Frank set itself apart from other restaurants in LA. When picture editor Maryann Brandon, ACE, relocated from New York in the late 1980s, Musso's was one of the few area restaurants to remind her of home. "My grandfather used to take us out every Sunday night to some place in Brooklyn — red vinyl seats and old-world style," she remarks. "I came to understand Musso's has this sort of Hollywood legacy, but for me, it was just like this New York- style, old-fashioned, Brooklyn…like, you could have a mafia meeting or you could have a script meeting!" In the mid-1970s, British-born picture editor Robert Leighton, ACE, moved to Los Angeles, where he was dismayed by the lack of nightlife. "London was full of stuff," he says. "New York was full of art crowds, club scenes. Here, there was nothing — nothing. People used to go home." But there was Musso's, whose sign beckoned to the expat Brit long before he could afford to dine there in style. "I saw that big sign on Hollywood Boulevard — 'Oldest Restaurant in Hollywood' — above the building," he remembers. "But I was dirt Carol Littleton. Photo by Wm. Stetz Maryann Brandon. Photo by Gregory Schwartz Musso & Frank's in 1965. Courtesy of Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives