Movie Locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 8, 2017December 8, 2017

Thornton Gardens from “Funny Girl”

I have never been a big Barbra Streisand fan. Sure, she’s an undeniably talented singer – and actress and director, for that matter – but I’m just not that into music. And that whole Rosie-O’Donnell-having-to-rearrange-her-stage-to-showcase-Barbra’s-better-side thing really turned me off. I won’t even get in to her absolutely cringe-worthy Inside the Actors Studio interview. Nevertheless, when I came upon this 2016 Outlook Newspapers article which mentioned that the movie Funny Girl had done some filming at a house located at 1155 Oak Grove Avenue in San Marino, I took note – and was utterly shocked. Though I had never seen the 1968 musical biopic, I knew it was a tremendous hit, one that put Babs on the map. I have no idea how I lived in Pasadena for over 15 years – and spent pretty much all of my waking moments traversing the area stalking, no less – yet failed to realize it had been lensed nearby! So I immediately added the address to my To-Stalk List and headed right on over to see the place in person a few weeks later.

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Prior to stalking the locale, I had not done any research on it. I hadn’t even so much as looked at an aerial view. Because the Outlook article described the site as a “house,” I assumed it was just that – a regular single-family residence. So I was shocked upon arriving to discover an absolutely massive front gate – easily the largest gate I’ve ever encountered – with no sign of a house anywhere.

As it turns out, the “house” mentioned in the article is actually a mansion – an enormous 2-story, 11,700-square-foot, Tudor Revival-style structure that boasts 7 bedrooms, 8 baths, and a whopping 9 acres of land. Sadly, outside of the impressive gate, none of it is visible from the road. But you can catch a glimpse of it in the aerial view below. Known as Thornton Gardens, the massive residence is named for its current owner Charles Thornton Jr., who bought the pad in 1989. For years though, it was known as the Katherine Sinclair Emery Estate, in honor of the woman who commissioned it in 1927.

After her husband, tobacco heir Frank Whitney Emery, passed away in 1920, Katherine decided to “downsize” from the sprawling 24-room mansion at 1400 Hillcrest Avenue in Pasadena that she had called home since 1914. (That pad has, sadly, since been demolished with several residences built in its place.) She hired renowned architect Myron Hunt to design a new estate for her on a large plot of land in nearby San Marino. His creation, which boasted a grand entry hall with a massive staircase, oak walls, leaded-glass windows, and a conservatory, was completed in 1928. The grounds were designed by landscape architects Florence Yoch, Lucille Council and Katherine Bashford and included a motor court, manicured gardens, and a reflecting pool. At various points during her tenure, Katherine, I guess hoping to downsize even further, subdivided her land. When she passed away in 1939, the residence was sold first to a wealthy couple who used it as a winter home and then, in 1945, to Colonel J.G. Boswell and his wife, Ruth Chandler Williamson, daughter of Harry Chandler. Though Boswell re-purchased some of the estate’s lost land, when he passed away in 1952, Ruth sold it off once again. Upon her death in 1987, the manse was acquired by Thornton and his wife, who painstakingly revitalized it and bought back much of the subdivided parcels. Doing so made the couple San Marino’s second largest landowners, the largest being The Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens! You can see some interior and exterior photographs of the spectacular property, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, here.

In Funny Girl, Thornton Gardens masquerades as the supposed Long Island mansion that Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif) and Fannie Brice (Streisand) purchase after getting married.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the property were utilized in the movie.

Though the Barbra Streisand Archives website mentions that Thornton Gardens belonged to producer Ray Stark at the time that Funny Girl was lensed, that information is incorrect. Per the California Office of Historic Preservation, the property was owned by Ruth Chandler and her third husband Sir William Charles Crocker when filming took place in 1967.

Thanks to IMDB, I learned that Thornton Gardens also pops up in 1950’s The Big Hangover as the home of John and Martha Belney (Percy Waram and Fay Holden, respectively) and their daughter, Mary (Elizabeth Taylor).

The front gate even makes an appearance in the flick.

The interior shown in the movie was just a set, though, and not Thornton Gardens’ actual interior.

As you can see in these photographs as compared to the screen captures above and below, the inside of the Belney home does not look at all like Thornton Gardens.

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: Thornton Gardens, aka Nick and Fannie’s “Long Island” mansion from Funny Girl, is located at 1155 Oak Grove Avenue in San Marino.

December 4, 2012December 3, 2012

Officer Rhodes’ House from “Bridesmaids”

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about the apartment building where Lillian (Maya Rudolph) lived in Bridesmaids, I recently became just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down all of the locales featured in the 2011 hit. One of the sites I was most interested in finding, of course, was the small blue ranch-style house belonging to Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd). I bugged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, relentlessly to help me out with the search and he finally managed to track the place down last Wednesday morning. Needless to say, I was absolutely ecstatic and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it just a few days later – despite the fact that it was raining at the time. As I have mentioned before, this stalker absolutely HATES rain (thank goodness I am moving to the desert) and there are very few locations that I would actually venture out to stalk during a downpour. But Officer Rhodes’ house was one of ‘em!

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Finding this location took quite a bit of work, actually, so Mike definitely deserves a HUGE pat on the back! While scanning through Bridesmaids looking for clues as to the house’s location, I noticed an address number of 8410 behind Rhodes in the scene in which Annie (Kristen Wiig) leaves a cake on his doorstep. Mike and I both had an inkling that the number was a fake, though.

That inkling was solidified when I spotted a five-digit address number on the residence pictured behind Annie’s car in the same scene. And while I was unable to make out the number with any sort of certainty, I told Mike that I thought it read 23430. As luck would have it, I was right! I had read in the Bridesmaids production notes that towns surrounding Los Angeles had been used to stand in for Milwaukee and Chicago in the flick, so Mike and I decided to begin our hunt in the 23400 blocks of small towns surrounding L.A. proper. And, sure enough, although it took a while, Mike worked his magic and found the pad – in Santa Clarita of all places. Yay!

Officer Rhodes’ house shows up a few times in Bridesmaids and, as you can see below, has not been altered much from its silver screen appearance.

In real life, the tiny cottage, which was originally built in 1948, boasts 1 bedroom, 1 bath, 605 square feet of living space (that’s smaller than my apartment!), and a small 0.085-acre parcel of land.

As you can see below, the place is absolutely adorable in person – and does not seem like an L.A.-area house at all.

I was most excited to see the front porch area where the raccoons devoured Annie’s cake in the movie. LOL LOVE IT!

And while I am not certain, I have a hunch that the interior (LOVE the beamed roof and French doors, by the way!) of Rhodes’ house was just a set.

Tomorrow, I will be blogging about the residence where Annie’s mom, Judy (Jill Clayburgh), lived in Bridesmaids – which just so happens to be located directly across the street from Rhodes’ house! I was going to blog both properties together, but ran out of time today. So until tomorrow . . .

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Officer Rhodes’ house from Bridesmaids is located at 23425 8th Street in Santa Clarita. Note – the property cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the site, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

December 3, 2012December 2, 2012

Lillian and Sam’s House from “People Like Us”

After I tracked down Frankie (Elizabeth Banks) and Josh’s (Michael Hall D’Addario’s) house from 2012’s People Like Us (which I blogged about on Friday), the next item on my To-Search-For list was the gorgeous Craftsman-style abode where Lillian Harper (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her son, Sam Harper (Chris Pine), lived in the flick. Thankfully, this locale proved to be an easy find, despite the fact that very little of the exterior was ever shown.

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Towards the end of People Like Us, there is a scene in which a phone book listing of Lillian and Sam’s address is shown. And while the residence is said to be located at 2523 Wonderland Avenue in the Laurel Canyon area, I knew from this June 2012 Los Angeles Times article that the place could actually be found in L.A.’s West Adams District. Because the real life address of Frankie’s home had been used in the movie, I had an inkling that the address number of Lillian’s house was most likely real, as well. So I started looking at aerial views of all residences numbered 2523 in the West Adams area and, sure enough, found the place after just a few minutes. Whoo hoo! And I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk it just a few days later.

As luck would have it, the SUPER-nice owner of the People Like Us house happened to come outside while we were stalking the place and filled us in on all sorts of filming information about the neighborhood. Ironically enough, the Eppes family’s home from the 2005 television series Numb3rs (pictured below), which I stalked and blogged about way back in March of 2008, is located right next door.

The owner answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of People Like Us and even said that if she was not running to appointment at the time, she would have invited us inside to see the interior of the house, which was used extensively in the film! OMG! That would have been amazing! Sigh! She also told me that I was welcome to go up onto the front porch to pose for a pic in the spot where Josh knocked on the door in the movie. Yay!

Lillian and Sam’s house popped up numerous times in People Like Us, although, as I mentioned above, not much of the exterior was shown.

The 6-bedroom, 5-bath, 4,030-square-foot abode, which was originally built in 1922 and sits on 0.16 acres, is quite spectacular in real life, as you can see below. Despite its large size, it does very much look like a Laurel Canyon-area home. I am guessing that the reason producers opted not to use an actual LC residence is that the streets there are extremely narrow and twisty and not very conducive to the transportation and parking needs of large production trucks.

As I mentioned above, the to-die-for interior of the home was used extensively in the flick. Of the fact that actual places and not sets were used in People Like Us, producer Bobby Cohen said, “There is something special about shooting in real locations. There is a texture to them that you can’t rebuild. It makes a difference.” I definitely agree. While some sets are absolutely spectacular (the bar from Burlesque comes to mind), I much prefer the look of real life locations. And the look of the interior of the People Like Us home is pretty darn spectacular. It would have been pretty foolish to use a set when an interior like that was available.

The home’s real life garage, which you can barely see in the background of the photograph below, was also used in the movie.

As was the majestic backyard. What I wouldn’t give to see that backyard in person!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Lillian’s house from People Like Us is located at 2523 4th Avenue in Los Angeles’ West Adams District. The Numb3rs house is located right next door at 2515 4th Avenue. The Fisher & Sons Funeral Home from Six Feet Under (which I blogged about here) is located around the corner at 2302 West 25th Street.

November 30, 2012November 29, 2012

Frankie’s House from “People Like Us”

As I mentioned in early November in my post about Henry’s Tacos, I did not especially love the 2012 movie People Like Us as I found it to be a bit too depressing. What I did love, though, was the fact that the flick was filmed in its entirety in L.A. So after watching, I, of course, set about tracking down as many of its locales as I could – all by myself! Lately I feel like I do not get to spend much time searching for locations as I am usually too busy writing about them. While I love the hunt, blogging each day and physically stalking sites each weekend does not leave much time for actually tracking them down. So while I typically hand over the task of searching to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, with People Like Us, I decided that I was going to do all of the heavy lifting myself. And I loved every minute of it! Smile The locale I was most interested in finding, of course, was the house that Frankie (Elizabeth Banks) moved into towards the very end of the movie. And I am embarrassed to admit that while finding it should have been a slam dunk, it took me more than a few hours to do so.

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In People Like Us, an address number of 809 was visible on the side of Frankie’s front door. For whatever reason, though, I was absolutely convinced that the number was a fake, so I initially did not pay much attention to it.

And while the filming locations map on the People Like Us Facebook page states that Frankie’s house is located on Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles, because the residence was shown to be on a flat, straight street in the movie and because Laurel Canyon is an extremely twisty and hilly road, I knew that information had to be incorrect. (I somehow did not even notice the word Burbank written next to the drawing of Frankie’s home on the map until making a screen capture of it for this post – yes, I am that blonde!) My gut was telling me that the abode was most likely located in the Valley somewhere, so I began searching for it in Van Nuys, Reseda, Valley Village and North Hollywood, but, unfortunately, came up completely empty-handed.

It was not until a few hours into the hunt that I recalled a scene in which Frankie’s son, Josh (Michael Hall D’Addario), wrote a note to Sam (Chris Pine) giving him their new address. And while I did not in a million years imagine that the home’s actual address would have been used in the note, I thought the address given might provide some sort of clue as to the pad’s real life location. So I scanned to that portion of the flick and saw that Josh wrote down 809 Fairview. On a whim, I punched 809 Fairview and Los Angeles into Google and it kicked back a map of 809 North Fairview Street in Burbank. One quick Google Street View glance and I saw that it was the right place. As you can imagine, I felt like a complete and total dolt after that! All those hours searching and it turns out that the home’s location had been spelled right out for me the entire time! D’oh!

Frankie’s house shows up only twice in People Like Us – first in the scene in which she is shown moving into the abode.

And next in the scene in which Sam shows up at Frankie’s house unexpectedly, hoping for a reconciliation. Sadly, as you can see in the photographs and screen captures both above and below, the house has changed quite a bit since the filming of People Like Us. Gone is Frankie’s landscaping and front lawn, the exterior trim is now painted red instead of white, the brick front porch steps have been swapped out for Spanish-style ones, a railing has been added, and the front porch overhang altered. Boo! At least the shutters flanking both front windows still look the same despite a change in paint color.

Thankfully though, the abode pretty closely resembles its onscreen self on Google Street View, as you can see below, so I guess there’s that. Winking smile

I much prefer the look of the house in the movie to its real life appearance. I am just not all that into drought-resistant landscaping, I guess. Winking smile According to Zillow, the 2-bedroom, 1-bath, 1,148-square-foot abode was originally built in 1936 and sits on 0.16 acres of land.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in People Like Us, although very briefly.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Frankie’s house from People Like Us is located at 809 North Fairview Street in Burbank.

November 6, 2012March 29, 2018

Jimmie’s House from “Pulp Fiction” – the Correct One!

Last week, a location photographer named Cris emailed me to ask for some stalking help. Turns out he had just scouted a house located at 4507 Kraft Avenue in Studio City and the owner (who bought the abode in 2009) had informed him that the residence had been used as Jimmie Dimmick’s (Quentin Tarantino’s) house in Pulp Fiction. Cris was a bit confused, though, as the place looked nothing at all like what he remembered of Jimmie’s pad in the 1994 thriller. So he did some online digging later that day and discovered that several websites confirmed what the homeowner had told him. Still not convinced, though, Cris contacted me to see if I might be willing to either verify or discount the rumors. And because I quite simply HATE, HATE, HATE erroneous location information being out there, I happily obliged! Thankfully it did not take me long to find the answer to this conundrum.

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One look at the residence located at 4507 Kraft Avenue via Google Street View and I knew it was not the right place. Jimmie’s house in the movie did not have a curved front door, nor did I remember it being L-shaped. So I popped in my Pulp Fiction DVD, scanned ahead to to the portion of the movie that took place at Jimmy’s house and immediately noticed an address number of “4149” on the curb in the background of the scene. Knowing that the simplest answer is most often the correct one, I decided to begin my hunt on Kraft Avenue, the street where most websites said the abode was located. I did a quick Google search of “4149 Kraft Avenue” and, sure enough, the Street View of that address matched perfectly to what had appeared onscreen – which absolutely shocked me! If the location was that easy to find, why on earth is there erroneous information about it out there?? The answer – shoddy research, which irks me to no end. One person says that Jimmie’s house is located at 4507 Kraft Avenue and everyone else just takes it at face value. There are so many blogs out there on which locations from other sites are merely copied in their entirety with no verification or new research done – which in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion is both lazy and unoriginal. As I stated recently in my post on the correct A Nightmare on Elm Street bridge, if one is going to take the time to write a blog or publish a book, then they should also take the time to make sure their information is valid. I just finished reading O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It in which author William C. Dear repeatedly states the mantra, “Never assume, always verify.” LOVE IT! (The book is PHENOMENAL by the way! I went in thinking Dear was a total fruitcake for believing O.J. is innocent, but am now completely convinced of that fact! If you are interested, you can visit his website here.)

As you can see below, the two sculpted hedges and streetlight in front of 4149 Kraft Avenue match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen in Pulp Fiction in the scene in which Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe (Harvey Keitel) arrived at Jimmie’s house.

From there, finding Jimmie’s house via aerial views was a snap. As it turns out, Jimmie’s pad is located at 4145 Kraft Avenue.

While the front exterior of the residence was never actually shown in Pulp Fiction, the backyard area was used extensively in the scene in which The Wolf hosed down Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson). As you can see in the below screen capture as compared to the aerial view, the unique roofline (blue arrow), porch overhang (pink arrow), diagonally-angled chimney (red arrow), and placement of the garage (green arrow) are exact matches.

As is the wooden fence that was visible behind Jules in the scene.

You can see a partial view of that fence in real life in the photograph below.

The only portion of the home’s exterior that appeared in Pulp Fiction was the front door.

As you can see below, the placement of the front door (at the southern edge of the house, next to a room that pops out), is also a match, although the actual door, and house color, have since been changed.

And thanks to Bing aerial views, you can also see that the house was, in fact, painted pink at one point in real life, just as it was in Pulp Fiction.

Because I also come from the “never assume, always verify” school of thought, I did a bit more research and happened to find a July 2007 Los Angeles Times article about Michael Glenn Mullen which stated that the soon-to-be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff happened to grow up in the Kraft Avenue house that was used as Jimmie’s residence in Pulp Fiction. The blurb also mentioned that Michael’s brother, Kevin, still owned the place. So I did a quick search of property records and found that 4145 Kraft Avenue is, indeed, owned by a Kevin Mullen. Voila! During his lifetime, Michael and Kevin’s father, Jack Mullen, was a press agent for countless Hollywood stars including Dyan Cannon, Peter Graves, Ann-Margret, Anthony Quinn, Julie Andrews, Steve McQueen, and Jock Mahoney, some of whom would even stop by the residence from time to time. So incredibly cool!

And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,702-square-foot house, which was originally built in 1936, was also used in the filming, I could not find any real life photographs of the interior with which to verify that hunch.

March 29th, 2018 UPDATE – As I just learned via Curbed Los Angeles, Jimmie’s house is currently for sale! If you have an extra $1.4 million laying around, it can be yours! For the rest of us, MLS photos of the property are aplenty, thankfully, and I can now say with certainty that the real life interior of the home was utilized in Pulp Fiction. As you can see below, the kitchen still looks almost exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed 24 years ago.

As does the living room;

bedroom;

and backyard.

Sadly, the listing does not include any pictures of the infamous hand-washing bathroom.

Sadder still, the residence is being marketed as a “development opportunity,” which means it will likely be gutted or torn down completely. Not cool! I do love the fact that the homeowners have a Pulp Fiction poster prominently on display, though!

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Cris for asking me to find this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Jimmie’s house from Pulp Fiction (the correct one) is located at 4145 Kraft Avenue in Studio City. In the movie, The Wolf pulled up in front of the house located next door, at 4149 Kraft Avenue. The “Smallest Park” from the “Smallest Park” episode of Parks and Recreation (which I blogged about here) can be found just up the street, in the parking lot located next to 4378 Kraft Avenue. Vitello’s Italian Restaurant from The Deep End of the Ocean and Robert Blake-fame (which I blogged about here) is located just around the corner at 4349 Tujunga Avenue, as is Robert Blake’s former house (which I blogged about here) at 11604 Dilling Street; The Brady Bunch house (which I blogged about here) at 11222 Dilling Street; and the house where Kevin Federline and Britney Spears got married (which I blogged about here) at 4053 Farmdale Avenue. Henry’s Tacos from People Like Us (which I have yet to blog about) is also located up the street at 11401 Moorpark Street.

October 16, 2012September 29, 2017

The Meiks’s House from “Frailty”

One of my absolute, hands-down, favorite movies of all time is the 2001 thriller Frailty, which just so happens to be actor Bill Paxton’s directorial debut. And I am apparently in good company with that opinion – according to the Contact Music website, James Cameron, Sam Raimi and Stephen King are also huge fans of the flick, calling it “electrifying”, “the most frightening horror picture I’ve seen since The Shining”, and “edge-of-the-seat entertainment”, respectively. If you have not yet seen Frailty, I cannot more highly recommend doing so! In fact, stop what you are doing right now and go rent it! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200 – just head straight to your nearest video store and get your hands on a copy of the DVD! Anyway, when fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, tracked down the supposed Thurman, Texas-area house where the Meiks family – Dad (Bill Paxton), Young Fenton (Matt O’Leary – the phenomenal actor who also played Marcus in Matthew Lillard’s directorial debut, Fat Kid Rules the World) and Young Adam (the equally phenomenal Jeremy Sumpter) – lived in the movie’s flashback scenes, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to Sun Valley to stalk the place. Because I thought the location would fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood postings, though, I had to wait a good four months to blog about it. So here goes!

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In real life, the Frailty bungalow, which was originally built in 1924, shares its 0.98-acre plot of land with another, larger abode. And while Zillow states that the dwelling boasts 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,825 square feet of living space, I believe that to be the combined measurements of both houses on the property.

While we were stalking the Frailty house, the owner happened to come outside and she honestly could NOT have been nicer! When I explained that Frailty was one of my favorite movies, she invited us ONTO THE PROPERTY to take a closer look and to check out the backyard area, which was used extensively in the flick. (Yes, I was pinching myself!) She also spent a good thirty minutes chatting with us about the residence and the filming. LOVE IT! The Frailty house actually has quite an interesting history – it was originally constructed in Watts and then moved to Sun Valley at some point thereafter. The abode is also rumored to be haunted, which is one of the reasons Bill Paxton chose to use it in the flick.

The residence is actually located on the grounds of the Rockin’ Horse Academy and I cannot tell you how much fun I had playing with the horses while we were there. So cute!

The Meiks home is one of the main locations used in Frailty and it shows up repeatedly throughout the flick. In the movie, adult Fenton (Matthew McConaughey) says, “We live right behind the Thurman Public Rose Garden [which was actually the Huntington Library rose garden, which I blogged about here], in the house where they used to keep the gardener back in the ‘50s. Dad had gotten a good deal on it back when he and mom got married.” Thankfully, the residence’s exterior looks almost exactly the same in person as it did onscreen, as you can see below.

The backyard area still looks much the same today as it did during the filming, as well.

Amazingly enough, the owner told us that the “cellar” that was used as a kill room in the movie was NOT a set. The Frailty production crew actually dug a huge hole in the home’s backyard, constructed a basement in the space, and filming took place inside of it. So incredibly cool!

After filming wrapped, the crew deconstructed the basement and tried to fill in the hole, but could not find the same type of dirt that covered the rest of the backyard. Because a different type of dirt eventually had to be used, you can still kind of see where the cellar was situated during the filming. Love it, love it, LOVE IT!

Because the real life interior of the home did not look dated enough to stand in for a 1970’s-era house, a set was constructed for the interior scenes. According to the movie’s production notes, of the set design, Bill Paxton said, “I wanted a stark, clean look, like an Edward Hopper painting.” Of the Hitchcockian-style flick, which took 37 days to shoot, he also said, “My vision of this story has always been the idea that it is a very edgy script that pushes a lot of buttons, especially because children are involved. But I thought that’s exactly the reason to give it a real, old Hollywood approach, where all of the darkness is implied instead of being explicit. We hear a chop or a scream, but we never see a drop of blood.” And that, in essence, is the movie’s magic. Without showing an ounce of gore, Frailty manages to grab you right from the very beginning and it does not let go until the credits roll. Did I mention how much I love this movie? Winking smile

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Meiks’ house from Frailty is located at 10641 Tuxford Street in Sun Valley.

October 3, 2012September 29, 2017

Leigh Ann’s House from “Teaching Mrs. Tingle”

The final Teaching Mrs. Tingle location that I was absolutely desperate to find was the home where Leigh Ann Watson (Katie Holmes) lived in the 1999 thriller. Because the other two properties featured in the movie are located in Pasadena (you can read my post on the house belonging to Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren) here and Coach Wenchell (Jeffrey Tambor) here), I was positively convinced that Leigh Ann’s residence was, as well, and spent countless hours scouring aerial views of the city. After repeatedly coming up empty-handed, though, I decided it was time to call in the big guns – fellow stalkers Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog – for some back-up. And, amazingly enough, Owen found the dwelling fairly quickly – in Culver City of all places, an area which I never would have searched in a million years. Thank you, Owen! So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the abode just a few days later.

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In the screen capture I had sent him, Owen had noticed that the faint outline of a 4 was visible in front of the 110 address number posted above Leigh Ann’s front door. Because of the picturesque trees visible on Leigh Ann’s street, Owen was also at first convinced that her house was located in Pasadena and spent quite a bit of time searching 4100 blocks in the area. When those efforts proved fruitless, he decided to take a look at IMDB’s Teaching Mrs. Tingle filming locations page to see if it would provide any insight. And, sure enough, it did! After noticing that both Culver City High School and Culver Studios were mentioned as being used in the flick, he shifted his hunt there and eventually found the house at 4110 Lincoln Avenue, just a few blocks north of the high school (which I believe was only used for a few interior shots). Yay!

Leigh Ann’s house is only featured twice, and very briefly at that, in Teaching Mrs. Tingle – first in an opening scene in which Jo Lynn Jordan (Marisa Coughlan) picks Leigh Ann up for school. In the scene, only the residence across the street from Leigh Ann’s is actually shown, though.

The abode next pops up in the scene in which Leigh Ann returns home for the night after she and her friends have taken Mrs. Tingle hostage. As you can see below, the residence looks quite a bit different now than it did during the filming. A white picket fence has since been constructed around the perimeter of the property, the paint color has since been changed and quite a bit of foliage has since been added to the front yard. I was absolutely floored to see that the moon-shaped cut-outs were still present in the window shutters, though. Love it!

In real life, the residence was originally built in 1934 and boasts 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,472 square feet of living space, and a 0.15-acre plot of land. As luck would have it, the homeowners happened to be outside when we showed up to stalk the place and they truly could NOT have been nicer. And while they did not own the bungalow at the time of the filming, the previous resident had informed them of the property’s cinematic history. For some inexplicable reason, though, they have yet to rent the movie to see the house onscreen for themselves. Sheesh! Some people! Winking smile If I owned that house, I’d be watching Teaching Mrs. Tingle pretty much nightly!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the dwelling was also used in the flick, but, unfortunately, I could not find any interior photographs of the residence with which to verify that hunch, nor did the homeowners know if any filming took place inside

I was absolutely shocked at how much Leigh Ann’s neighborhood resembled Pasadena in person. In fact, if someone had shown me the photograph below prior to me stalking Leigh Ann’s house, I would have bet money on the fact that it was a photograph of a Pasadena street. Who knew Culver City had trees like that?

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

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: Leigh Ann’s house from Teaching Mrs. Tingle is located at 4110 Lincoln Avenue in Culver City.

September 27, 2012September 26, 2012

Grand Central Air Terminal from “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”

While doing research for yesterday’s post (which you can read here), I came across a page on IMDB that stated that the bus station scene from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was filmed at the Glendale Amtrak Station. I knew from previous cyber-stalking, though, that the Pee-wee bus station scene was actually filmed a few miles north of the Amtrak depot at the now-defunct Grand Central Air Terminal (a location that I first learned about way back in March 2011 while writing my post on the nearby former bowling alley that stood in for the exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s in Pulp Fiction). Ironically enough, I had actually stalked both the Glendale Amtrak Station and Grand Central Air Terminal on the same day in early May. So to clear up the confusion about the Pee-wee bus station, I thought now would be as good a time as any to blog about the place.

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Grand Central Air Terminal was designed by Henry L. Gogerty in the Spanish Colonial Revival/Art Deco-style on the site of what was formerly a private airport for millionaire Leslie C. Brand. The property was officially opened to the public on February 22, 1929 and featured the first paved runway west of the Rocky Mountains. The airport was also the first to offer transcontinental passenger air service from Los Angeles to the East Coast and the premiere flight took place in 1929 with none other than Charles Lindbergh at the helm. Hollywood luminaries Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were also onboard. Other stars who took flights to or from Grand Central over the years include Shirley Temple, Gary Cooper, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Carole Lombard, and Jean Harlow. Such aviation pioneers as Howard Hughes, Glenn L. Martin, Eddie Rickenbacker, Amelia Earhart, and Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan are all counted as having piloted flights from the airport.

In 1947, following World War II, Grand Central’s runway was cut down to 3,400 feet to make room for a road. When the runway was later deemed too short for jet planes to use in 1959, the 125-acre property was closed and most of its hangars and runways demolished or removed. All that remains of the original airport is the actual terminal building and its three-story Zigzag Moderne-tower. The site was subsequently purchased by Prudential Insurance, who transformed it into an industrial park named Grand Central Business Park. In 1961, The Walt Disney Company leased the vast majority of the property and subsequently purchased it in 1997. The Park is currently used as Disney corporate offices and as the headquarters of Walt Disney Imagineering. And while the Walt Disney Company has an agreement with the city of Glendale to restore the air terminal building, which suffered damage in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, back to its original grandeur by the year 2015, it has, sadly, been left to deteriorate in the meantime.

In Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Grand Central Terminal stood in for the supposed San Antonio bus station where Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) ran into Simone (my former acting teacher Diane Salinger).

You can even see a portion of a sign reading “Grand Central Building” in the background of the scene.

Thanks to its proximity to several different Hollywood studios, Grand Central Air Terminal has been the site of countless filmings over the years. In the beginning of 1933’s Air Hostess, it was the Los Angeles airport where the TWA flight from Albuquerque landed.

Grand Central was also the airport where saxophonist Ronny Bowers (Dick Powell) landed upon first coming to Southern California in 1937’s Hollywood Hotel.

In 1943, Grand Central stood in for Transatlantic Airways’ London Terminal in the movie Sherlock Holmes in Washington, although it only appeared very briefly.

The north side of Grand Central Terminal stood in for the Carson Police Department in 1985’s My Science Project, although such a small portion of the building was shown that it is virtually unrecognizable.

You can see below, though, that the front of the police station matches the area where Pee-wee sat in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

Grand Central Air Terminal also looks to have been the inspiration for the painted backdrop that was used to portray Genovia International Airport in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. While the layout of the terminal was, for whatever reason, flipped in the movie, the resemblance is undeniable. You can check out a historic photograph of Grand Central, in which its similarities to the Genovia airport are obvious, here. Being that the movie was produced by The Walt Disney Company, it makes sense that the former terminal served as the model for Genovia International.

Grand Central Terminal was also supposedly used in 1923’s Going Up, 1930’s Hell’s Angels, 1933’s Lady Killer, Captured and Central Airport, 1934’s Bright Eyes, 1936’s Hats Off, 1938’s Sky Giant, and 1941’s Sky Raiders, but, unfortunately, I could not find copies of any of those productions with which to verify that information.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Grand Central Air Terminal, from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, is located at 1310 Air Way in Glendale. The former bowling alley that was used as the exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant in Pulp Fiction is located right around the corner at 1435 Flower Street.

August 20, 2012August 17, 2012

Mike’s House from “Say Anything . . . “

As I mentioned in last Thursday’s post about North Hollywood Park – aka the location of the iconic Boombox scene from Say Anything . . . – Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I recently went on a mission to track down some missing locales from the classic 1989 flick. And I am very happy to report that our hunt was successful! One location that Mike found was the house where Mike Cameron (Jason Gould) lived in the movie. So he took me right on over there to stalk the place way back in early June, shortly after we had stalked both North Hollywood Park and the 7-Eleven from the flick (which I blogged about on Friday).

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In Say Anything . . . , Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) becomes the unwitting “key-master” – aka the designated driver who holds onto all of the partygoers’ car keys and then judges who is able to drive home and who is not – for a high school graduation party that he has brought his dream girl, Diane Court (Ione Skye), to on their first date. After the party, he winds up having to take a drunk classmate named Mike home. The only trouble is that Mike cannot remember where he lives and the drive to his house winds up taking over three hours. When they do finally drop him off, Mike stands on the curb and says, “You guys are the best! Give me a call or uh – “, but before he can finish the sentence, Lloyd cuts him off by speeding away. LOL

Mike found this location thanks to an address number of 4936 that was visible on the curb in the scene. He figured that the residence was most likely located in the same general vicinity as North Hollywood Park and the 7-Eleven from the flick and started looking in the NoHo area before working his way outward until he found the right spot.

It is absolutely mind-boggling to me (in a good way) that the house looks exactly – and when I say exactly, I mean EXACTLY – the same today as it did back in 1989 when Say Anything . . . was filmed. Even the tree in the front yard appears just as it did onscreen – albeit slightly taller, but not by much. In real life, the residence, which was originally built in 1947, measures 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, and 1,473 square feet, and sits on a 0.17-acre plot of land.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mike Cameron’s house from Say Anything . . . is located at 4936 Sunnyslope Avenue in Sherman Oaks.

August 17, 2012August 16, 2012

The 7-Eleven from “Say Anything . . . “

Located directly across the street from North Hollywood Park – aka the spot where the iconic Boombox scene from Say Anything . . . was filmed, which I blogged about yesterday – is the 7-Eleven that appeared in the 1989 flick. Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I found out about this locale once again thanks to Mike’s fiancé, Ame, who grew up in the North Hollywood area and had heard about the filming when it took place 24 years ago (yikes, has it really been that long?!?!). So, after stopping by the park – where we, of course, re-enacted the Boombox scene – Mike and I headed right across the street to stalk the 7-Eleven.

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At the beginning of Say Anything . . . , Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) takes Diane Court (Ione Skye) to a supposed Seattle, Washington-area 7-Eleven convenience store to grab a Big Gulp and some coffee on their way home from a high school graduation party in the wee hours of the morning.

Amazingly enough, despite a fairly minor roof alteration, the store looks very much the same today as it did when Say Anything . . . was filmed almost two-and-a-half decades ago.

While we were there, Mike pointed out that even the brick border separating the parking lot from the sidewalk that Lloyd and Diane walked over in the flick is still there to this day – albeit a little worse for the wear. Love it, love it, love it!

In the movie, while leaving the 7-Eleven, Lloyd spots some broken glass on the ground and, almost instinctively, brushes it out of Diane’s way so that she does not walk through it. Now that’s chivalry at its finest!

So I, of course, just had to pretend to step on broken glass while we were there. Smile

North Hollywood Park – pretty much the exact spot where Lloyd stood during the Boombox scene, in fact – is visible in the background behind Lloyd and Diane as they walk off-screen after leaving the 7-Eleven.

Say Anything . . . is not the 7-Eleven’s only claim to fame. According to the Rob Dyrdek Foundation website, on May 18th, 2010 the convenience store was converted into an urban skate shop for the day in conjunction with the grand opening of the charity’s third Safe Spot Skate Spot – a state-of-the-art skating plaza located inside of North Hollywood Park.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER and you can take a look at my my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and his fiancé, Ame, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Say Anything . . . 7-Eleven is located at 11340 Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood. North Hollywood Park, where the iconic Say Anything . . . Boombox scene was filmed, is located directly across the street at 11455 Magnolia Boulevard.