It seemed like a good idea while in L.A. last week to visit the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot in Culver City since my new subject, James Stewart, worked on the lot for the first five years of his career and won an Academy Award while there. I have one of those vivid imaginations you hear about now and again and spent my time rubbing shoulders with Gable, Crawford, Turner, Garland, and Munchkins as a group of us roamed the streets of MGM.

Oh, by the way, if you take the MGM tour, be prepared for a couple of shocks. They begin by taking you in a room and showing you a short film about the history of the lot, but after the first five or six three-second clips, it dawns on you: every shot you’re seeing is from a Columbia picture—you know, It Happened One Night, On the Waterfront, From Here to Eternity—and Columbia pictures weren’t shot here at all but rather on Gower Street in Hollywood, miles and miles away. It’s sort of…sacrilegious to do what they’re doing on that tour, even though Columbia bought out what was left of MGM in 1989 and then the new studio became Sony Pictures, and the tour begins in the big Sony Entertainment building and ends there as well.

So, you’re in the middle of this short film and feeling pretty enraged about the fact that you’re watching a Columbia reel on the MGM lot, and then the picture veers into an oh-by-the-way explanation of the fact you are actually on the MGM lot, which was bought by Columbia, and so the clips show some Gable and some Munchkins for a minute or so, but it’s pretty short shrift for Leo the Lion, Mr. Mayer, Mr. Thalberg, and Company.

Yeah, yeah, so let me out of this damn little room with these grinning tourists—I want to see the lot! I was skeptical of John, our tour guide, as he led 15 or 18 of us across the street and onto real studio property, and I was on him right away wanting to know if we were going to learn about more than production of the TV series, The Goldbergs, which he was already pushing, and he assured that, oh yes, the two-hour tour would also cover the MGM of olden days.

We stopped at a building, a grand art deco building, and I assailed John again with, “Is this the MGM administration building?” and he said patiently, as if I were, you know, dim, “This hasn’t been MGM for a long time.” I redirected: “Is this the MGM administration building of olden days?” and he said we were going to talk about that right then.

Mary said out the side of her mouth at this point, “He knows you’re trouble and you’re going to get kicked out of here,” as if I get the boot from places frequently when it really only happens once in a while, and always because I’m misunderstood.

Turns out we were in front of the Irving Thalberg Building, opened in 1938, which of course begged the question, “So, where were the administrative offices before 1938?” and suddenly John realized he had his hands full. He never did whirl around and ask, “Who the hell are you, anyway, and why are you ruining my tour?” Instead, when I apologized for my umpteenth question he said, “No, no, questions are good. Bring ‘em on,” and it turned out he knew a lot about the old studio and where things were, like the star bungalows and the edit suites and where the writers worked and where Judy Garland went to “star school.” I was impressed with John by the end.

Of course, you know about the dissolution of MGM in the 1970s, the selling off of all the props and costumes now nearly priceless, like the million-dollar ruby slippers, and the demolition of the entire backlot where everything from Andy Hardy to Mutiny on the Bounty to Singin’ in the Rain were shot. In other words, a lot of MGM is gone with the wind and has been for decades. But some is still there, and as I roamed the streets among the soundstages, I could see in my mind’s eye Clark Gable walk past dressed in his San Francisco tux; I could see Joan Crawford slink by in a glittering gown. Over there, Eleanor Powell showing miles of leg, and yonder, Carole Lombard skulking about, checking up on the set of Honky Tonk and her husband’s new distraction, Lana Turner. They’re all there among the stucco buildings with chrome accents—baby Jean Harlow, boy genius Irving Thalberg, the three Marx Brothers, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, and yes, long-legged, loping James Stewart, the guy who had no great looks but loads of natural talent that Metro didn’t know what to do with. Jim was winning an Oscar for Leo on the one hand while, on the other hand, they saddled him with wooden Indians like Hedy Lamarr and Paulette Goddard in pictures he didn’t want to make. Suddenly, military service seemed like a good idea, and he flew off and left behind in his propwash the lot on which I now stood.

We visited three soundstages on the tour. First was the music scoring stage, which interested me not because of its perfect acoustics or because John Williams directed the Star Wars scores there, but rather because in the mid 1930s it was used for process shots like the San Francisco earthquake. Then, inevitably, we looked in on the set of The Goldbergs, which John was required to plug yet again. Finally, we visited the set of Jeopardy, which was dark that day but interesting nonetheless. We stood outside the mighty titan, Studio 15, where Metro craftsmen built Munchkinland and Dorothy started down the Yellow Brick Road.

Our final minutes were spent at the gift store where you could buy any number of Columbia souvenirs. It was the final offense, but by then it really didn’t matter because I was outside in the warm California sun, distracted by the ghosts of all those great people surrounding me. People I’ve gotten to know over the years, some of whom have become friends. Now, I stood there catching glimpses of each at home in the mightiest studio of all.