Mark Harmon – IAMNOTASTALKER

October 20, 2016September 29, 2017

The “Shadow of a Doubt” Remake House

Let’s be honest – remakes are rarely, if ever, good. Especially if they’re of the made-for-television movie variety. Despite that fact, when I heard that the house from the 1991 made-for-television remake of Shadow of a Doubt was located right across the street from the pad featured in the 1943 original, I just had to stalk it. (I blogged about the residence from the original film. located at 904 McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa, yesterday, for those who are interested.) As you can see above, the property is currently undergoing a major renovation, but, in the interest of being thorough, I figured it was worthy of a post.

[ad]

The 6-bedroom, 2-bath, 5,016-square-foot dwelling was originally built in 1878.

The two-story Stick Eastlake-style residence, which sits on 0.43 acres, was constructed for Dr. and Mrs. Augustus Wright. Amazingly, the property has only gone through two ownership changes throughout its 138-year history.

According to a Historic Resources Inventory performed on the house in 2014 in preparation for the renovation, the site is architecturally significant due to its “wealth of Eastlake detailing,” including a pedimented porch and spindle brackets located near the bay window, front veranda and balcony.

Per the renovation plans, much of the home’s original detailing will be kept intact.

In the 1991 Shadow of a Doubt remake, the residence portrayed the home of the Newton family. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), I could not find a copy of the flick anywhere. All I was able to track down was this 14-minute clip of it on YouTube, so the screen captures in this post are limited. As you can see below, though, the house looks very much the same today as it did onscreen 25 years ago.

I was rather surprised that producers went to all of the trouble to shoot on the same street as the original film, but did not use the same house. According to a 2002 SFGate article, though, the production team did, in fact, want to shoot at 904 McDonald Avenue. Unfortunately, Hitchcock, apparently already foreseeing the possibility of a sequel or remake, had included an exclusivity clause in his agreement with the homeowners, which, almost fifty years later, barred the 1991 movie from doing any filming on the premises. Producers of the remake liked the look of the neighborhood from the original so much, though, that they found a similar-looking property located on the same street and lensed the flick there instead.

Per the SFGate article, the home’s real life interior was also used in the filming. Though, as evidenced by my photos, that interior is currently being drastically changed and will likely be completely unrecognizable when renovations are complete.

As I learned from the Dear Old Hollywood website, the dwelling also made an appearance in the 1948 noir All My Sons as the residence of Jim Bayliss (Lloyd Gough) and Sue Bayliss (Arlene Francis).

I absolutely love that you can see the home’s 815 address number in the film.

Though the number placards are no longer in the same position, they look to be the exact ones that were in place in 1948 when the movie was filmed!

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Newton home from the 1991 Shadow of a Doubt remake can be found at 815 McDonald Avenue in Santa Rosa.

May 26, 2015July 10, 2017

The Alhambra from “NCIS”

Sometimes you go years wondering about a location only to find out that it is right in your own backyard. For what seemed like ages, I had wanted to track down the United States Criminal Investigative Service office from NCIS. I had a feeling that the series used two different structures – one for establishing shots and one for on location exterior filming – and it turns out I was right. While watching a scene that took place outside of NCIS headquarters in the Season 11 episode titled “Crescent City (Part I),” I immediately recognized one of the visible buildings as being part of The Alhambra, a large commercial office and retail complex in Alhambra that I had visited often when I lived in L.A. That led to me eventually finding the structure used in establishing shots, as well. But more on that later.

[ad]

The Alhambra complex was built for C F Braun & Co., a petrochemical engineering company originally founded by Carl Franklin Braun in San Francisco in 1909. After World War I, Braun, seeking to expand the business, decided to relocate the main offices to Southern California where real estate was more affordable. He purchased a 45-acre plot of land at the corner of West Mission Road and South Fremont Avenue in Alhambra and proceeded to build a large office complex there. The beautiful site, which looks more like a college campus than a company headquarters, was completed in 1922.

Braun passed away in 1954, but the company continued to function throughout 1980, at which time it was acquired by Santa Fe International. The business then went through a succession of different owners and its Alhambra headquarters was eventually sold to The Ratkovich Company in 1999. The development firm set about revitalizing the site by adding retail shops, a massive gym and a housing development. The new complex was dubbed “The Alhambra.”

My mom used to teach in the Alhambra area and attended several conferences at The Alhambra. For reasons I no longer remember, I dropped her off at many of those conferences. On my first visit, upon driving into the complex, I became mesmerized by its beauty and wound up wandering around a bit.

Though I fell in love with many aspects of the complex, my favorite feature is easily the walking bridge that links it to a shopping center located across the street. In that shopping center? A Starbucks! So yes, I’ve utilized that walking bridge many a time .

I figured filming had to have taken place at The Alhambra at some point, but, at the time, could not seem to find any information about its cinematic history online. Then one day, while watching an early episode of House, I spotted it standing in for the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital (PPTH) and made a mental note to re-visit the complex so that I could stalk it properly. I never got around to it, though. Then when I saw it pop up on NCIS last year, The Alhambra moved right to the top of my To-Stalk List.

In the beginning of the “Crescent City (Part I)” episode of NCIS, Eleanor Bishop (Emily Wickersham) is shown trying to make a repair to her car outside of what is supposed to be the United States Criminal Investigative Service office in Washington, D.C.

While watching, I immediately recognized the brick exterior and unique roofline of The Alhambra’s A9 East building.

The area where the scene was shot is denoted with a pink “X” in the aerial view below.

A far-off view of that same area is pictured in the photograph below.

Later in the episode, Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), Dwayne Pride (Scott Bakula) and T.C. Fornell (Joe Spano) are shown walking through what is supposedly the Washington Navy Yard. In reality, the men were strolling along the eastern side of The Alhambra’s Building A10. (My photograph was taken a bit too far north and does not perfectly match the scene, but the building pictured in my photo is visible in the far background of the screen capture below.)

The area and direction in which the men walked is denoted with a pink arrow below.

The trio eventually winds up in the courtyard of The Alhambra’s Building A9 East.

That courtyard is denoted with a pink “X” in the aerial view below.

The Alhambra has appeared in several other episodes of NCIS, including Season 9’s “Till Death Do Us Part.”

Once I discovered NCIS’ use of The Alhambra for on location exterior filming of scenes taking place at the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service office, I decided to attempt to track down the building used for establishing shots. It turned out to be a rather easy hunt. The real life headquarters of NCIS in Washington, D.C., aka the the CNIC (Commander, Navy Installations Command) office, is used for those shots. That building is located at 716 Sicard Street SE at the Washington Navy Yard. You can see a photo of it here.

As I mentioned above, The Alhambra also regularly masked as the exterior of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital on the television series House. The stills below are from the Season 2 episode titled “Daddy’s Boy.”

The Alhambra also appeared in the Season 3 episode titled “Son of a Coma Guy.”

As well as in Season 3’s “Needle in a Haystack.” For that episode, the grounds of The Alhambra were covered in snow.

Well, a portion of the grounds, at least. As you can see in the screen capture below, the production team failed to put snow on the far end of the street leading into The Alhambra, making the flurry appear to be a bit fake. Whoops!

The television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer also made extensive use of The Alhambra. Though UCLA was initially utilized to masquerade as the University of California, Sunnydale on the show, when filming on a operating campus proved to be too difficult, production moved to The Alhambra to shoot exterior college scenes.

The Alhambra also masked as a mental institution in the Season 5 episode of Sliders titled “Map of the Mind.” And yes, that’s a CGI-generated vortex pictured in the second screen capture below.

The Alhambra was where Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) met up with CGB Spender (William B. Davis) in the Season 7 episode of The X-Files titled “En Ami.”

The Alhambra was also featured in episodes of The Profiler, Scandal, and Arli$$, though I am unsure of which episodes specifically.

For more stalking fun, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Los Angeles magazine and Discover Los Angeles.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Alhambra, aka the exterior of the United States Criminal Investigative Service office from NCIS, is located at 1000 South Fremont Avenue in Alhambra. You can visit the property’s official website here.

January 20, 2015March 16, 2015

FBI Headquarters from “The Mentalist”

Around this time last year, The Mentalist embarked on a huge change of course by having Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) and Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) leave the Sacramento-based California Bureau of Investigation and then join the Austin, Texas branch of the FBI. So, of course, that meant that I had a new location to find – the building used as FBI Headquarters. I spent countless hours searching for the stunningly modern structure, though, but was never able to track it down. For a while, I even thought it might actually be located in the Lone Star State. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I enlisted the help of my friend Owen, of the When Write Is Wrong blog, and he came through big time! While doing a Google Image search, he happened upon this Tumblr page on which a commenter stated that the building used on the series is the Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center at the College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita. As soon as Owen shared the information with me, I became desperate to stalk the place. So last week, when we headed out to West L.A. for my dad’s doctors appointments, I begged the Grim Cheaper to take a little detour to Santa Clarita beforehand. Despite the fact that this would take us sixty miles out of our way (round-trip), he agreed! He’s seriously so good to me!

[ad]

The Dianne G. Van Hook University Center was designed by architect Leo A. Daly in 2010 at a cost of almost $29 million. The 110,000-square-foot ultra-modern structure contains 23 classrooms, 6 computer labs, 6 meeting rooms, a lecture hall/theatre, a book store, a video conference room, and a large outdoor patio. The building was named in honor of the college’s longtime superintendent/president, Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook, who has been running the COC since 1988.

Though the College of the Canyons has appeared in countless productions over the years (including Weeds, NCIS, and The Girl Next Door), for this post I am focusing solely on the University Center. The building first showed up in the Season 6 episode of The Mentalist titled “My Blue Heaven” and has subsequently been used in every episode since, usually in establishing shots.

The Dianne G. Van Hook University Center is just as stunning in person as it is onscreen. I love how the façade is made up of both sharp and rounded lines.

The interior of the building also pops up occasionally on The Mentalist, so I was beyond thrilled to discover that it is accessible to the public.

The University Center’s interior is also just as stunning in person as it is onscreen.

In the recently-aired Season 7 episode of The Mentalist titled “The Silver Briefcase,” Lisbon and Jane were shown walking along the building’s catwalk . . .

. . . and down the main staircase.

So I just had to pose for a pic on the stairs. Smile

The building’s incredible views were also shown in “The Silver Briefcase.” Man, what I wouldn’t give to see that place at night!

The interior of the actual FBI offices on The Mentalist are sets located inside of a soundstage at Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank. I actually got to see those sets while on a tour of the lot back in June with my friends Lavonna, Kim, Kaylee and Katie. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed, though.

The University Center also popped up in the Season 12 episode of NCIS titled “Blast From the Past” as the spot where Leroy Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon) went undercover as an IT specialist.

Big THANK YOU to Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dr. Dianne G. Van Hook University Center, aka the Austin Headquarters of the FBI on The Mentalist, is located on the College of the Canyons campus in Santa Clarita. The building does not have an exact address, but is situated on University Center Drive, just west of where it intersects with Rockwell Canyon Road.