Going bowling in ‘Mars’

I enjoyed your “Set Pieces” article about Edward Doheny’s Greystone Mansion, one of my favorite L.A. film locations [“ ‘Blood’ Work: Digging Up a Mansion’s Mystery,” Dec. 27]. But if the makers of “There Will Be Blood” had tracked down the ingeniously economical Fox B-picture “The Day Mars Invaded Earth,” which was shot extensively on the grounds in 1962, they would have found that the disused bowling alley had been seen on film, fully functional, in black-and-white CinemaScope.

“Mars” provides probably the most extensive tour of the property, inside and out, of all the features that were shot there, including such better-known works as “The Loved One” and “The Disorderly Orderly.”

Joe Dante Hollywood