I have been head over heels for Leonardo DiCaprio for what feels like pretty much my whole life – since long before Titanic, and even before the Growing Pains days. Yes, I actually sat through his first flick Critters 3. I do love me some Leo! One of my fave Leo movies (besides Titanic, of course!) is Catch Me If You Can, so a few years ago, when I found out that scenes from that movie were filmed at a house on California Boulevard in Pasadena, I ran right out to stalk it. The Pasadena house shows up towards the second half of the movie, as the home where Leo’s mom lives after she divorces Christopher Walken’s character.
The first scene where the house is featured is the scene when Tom Hanks and two other FBI agents pay a visit to Frank Abagnale Jr’s (Leo’s character) mom to dig up some information on the con man. In the scene, Frank’s mom naively offers to “write a check” for the money Frank has stolen until Tom Hank informs her the amount owed is about $1.3 million. 🙂
Towards the end of the movie, the house is featured yet again in the scene when Leo arrives at his mother’s home on Christmas Eve only to discover that she now has a whole new family. A few minutes later, Tom Hanks shows up with a calvary of police cars to arrest him. Not a very Merry Christmas for Leo! You can watch the (ultra depressing) Christmas scene here.
The Catch Me If You Can house looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it does in the movie. It is interesting to note, though, that there are hundreds of homes in Pasadena that look almost exactly like this one. There is truly nothing different or spectacular about it to distinguish it from the countless other white clapboard homes in the area. So it absolutely fascinates to contemplate what it was about this home that made producers choose it over the others. The only reason I can come up with is that this home has a very large front yard area, which was necessary for the scene when Leo is arrested, as there needed to be enough room for six police cars to drive up onto the front lawn. These location decisions always fascinate me, though, and I would love to sit down and talk with a location scout someday to find out what exactly their thought processes are in determining locations.
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The Catch Me If You Can house is located at 3077 E. California Boulevard in Pasadena. I also just found out that Martin Sheen’s New Orleans house in the movie is actually located in Altadena, so it looks like I have some more Catch Me If You Can stalking to do! 🙂
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