The “Crossroads” Gas Station

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One  location that I was absolutely dying to stalk while visiting Palmdale last week was the supposed Texas-area gas station where Lucy Wagner (aka Miss Britney Spears) stole the keys to Ben’s (aka Anson Mount’s) Buick Skylark convertible in the 2002 movie Crossroads.  I had known from watching the flick’s DVD commentary with director Tamra Davis and writer Shonda Rhimes that the gas station scene was filmed somewhere in the Palmdale/Lancaster area, but unfortunately its exact location was not specified.  So, the night before my dad and I were set to head out that way, I got to work looking at aerial views of what I thought was every single gas station located within the Palmdale/Lancaster city limits.  Unfortunately though, I came up completely empty-handed.  So, imagine my surprise the following morning when I spotted what I was fairly certain was the Crossroads station while driving to the famed Four Aces movie set.  I just about had a heart attack, slammed on my brakes, did a U-turn in the middle of the street, and headed right on back to the station to get a closer look.

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And, as it turns out, my instincts were right!  The Super Store 6, as it is called in real life, was in fact the gas station from Crossroads!  So, I immediately headed right on inside to speak with the owner who truly could NOT have been nicer.  She told me that Britney had been very friendly and down-to-earth during the filming and that it had been a fairly low-key shoot.  The owner also informed me that her station had appeared in both ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video and the final scene from the original Terminator movie.  Unfortunately though, the gas station has been completely remodeled since that time and looks quite a bit different today than it did in the early 1980’s when those productions were filmed. 

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Thankfully though, Crossroads was filmed after the remodel took place, so it still looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen.  In what turned out to be one of my very favorite scenes from the movie, Lucy, Ben, and their friends Mimi (aka Taryn Manning) and Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), stop by the station to fill up their car with gas while making their way from Louisiana to California.  After grabbing a snack in the station’s mini-mart, Lucy, Mimi, and Kit discover that Ben has fallen asleep in the backseat of his car and, even though they have been warned that they are not allowed to touch the car under any circumstances, they decide to steal his keys and drive to their next destination themselves. 

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Mimi nominates Lucy to steal the car keys from Ben’s pocket because, as she says, “Well, Kit and I voted and you lost!” (LOVE IT!)  So, Lucy snatches the keys and the girls drive off into the sunset.

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But not before snapping the above photograph of themselves which I think is just about the cutest thing ever.  I love, love, love that famous cross-eyed, tongue-out Britney face . . .  

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. . . which she later duplicated in her Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi Cola, but I digress.

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In Crossroads, Ben’s Buick is parked at the station’s southeastern-most pump, in the spot where I am standing in the above photograph.  Because there was a large truck parked right near the pump,  though, my dad had to take the picture from the opposite direction from which the camera was facing in the movie.

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In the very final scene of The Terminator, Sarah Connor (aka Linda Hamilton) stops by the Super Store 6 to fill her tank with gas and winds up having her photograph taken by a young boy.  I am fairly certain that the station was never actually colored pink and green in real life, but that producers had it painted solely for the filming of the movie and then painted it back to its original color when the production was wrapped.  Because the gas station is supposed to be located somewhere in the Mexican desert in the flick, producers also added quite a bit of set dressing, including Spanish signs, piñatas, and souvenirs, making the place look quite a bit different than it actually appeared at the time.

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ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video takes place almost in its entirety at the Crossroads/Terminator gas station.
 
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In the video, the woman in red parks her car in the exact same spot that Sarah Connor parked her Jeep in The Terminator, but the camera is facing in the opposite direction in the video than it was in the movie so the view is a bit different.
 
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Terminator Gas Station 
 
But, as you can see in the above screen captures, the square-shaped bars that cover the mini-mart’s windows . . .
 
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. . . and the roofline and roof shape from the “Gimme All Your Lovin’” video exactly match that which appeared in The Terminator.
 
“Gimme All Your Lovin’” Music Video at Palmdale Gas Station

You can watch the “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video by clicking above.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Crossroads Terminator Gas Station

Stalk It: The Super Store 6, aka the gas station from Crossroads, the final scene in the first Terminator movie, and ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video, is located at  37202 90th Street East, at the corner of 90th Street East and Avenue S, in Palmdale.  Some maps also list the gas station as being located in the town of Littlerock.  In Crossroads, Ben’s car was parked at the pump located in the northeast corner of the station, in the area denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.  At the end of The Terminator, Sarah Connor was parked in front of the station’s western-most pump, in the area denoted with a blue “X” in the above aerial view.  ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” music video was filmed in the exact same spot that was used in The Terminator.

The “Kill Bill” Church

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One location that my dad and I visited while stalking in the Lancaster and Palmdale areas last week was the Sanctuary Adventist Church which was used prominently in the 2003 and 2004 Quentin Tarantino movies Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2.  And although I have never actually seen either of the Kill Bill flicks, I was dying to stalk the church because, thanks to fave book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I found out that it also had a very small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in the 2002 Britney Spears movie Crossroads, in which I was an extra.  I should mention here that if you are planning to spend a day stalking in Palmdale – and I do HIGHLY recommend doing so – I suggest you print out maps of each and every location that you are wanting to visit before heading out the door.  I failed to do so and had planned on using my navigation system to lead me to each locale, but, let me tell you, that did NOT pan out very well.  At most points during our journey, my navigator had no idea where on earth we were – more than once it told me I was driving on a road that didn’t exist!  LOL – and a few times it even took us on routes through dirt roads that wound up at dead ends.  And while Palmdale and Lancaster are not exactly desolate – there’s even a Starbucks there! – most of the filming locations in that area are pretty far removed from civilization.  I suggest that you not make a stalking journey out there alone and that you arrive with a full tank of gas and a car that is in good working order.

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The Sanctuary Adventist Church, which up until recently was known as the Calvary Baptist Church, is an actual working religious facility that, sadly, does not appear to currently be in the best of shape.  The tiny Spanish-style chapel definitely has a Southwestern feel to it and it is not very hard to see why Quentin Tarantino chose to use it as the site of the wedding day massacre in his two-part action flick.  Especially with that lone Joshua tree that stands in front of it and gives the church a very picturesque, very cinematic feel.

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As you can see in the above photograph, the church is also located on a very desolate and very remote stretch of desert road, which gives it a very non-L.A., non-California feel.  In fact it is hard to believe that the place is located just a scant sixty miles away from the hustle and bustle that is Los Angeles.

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In Crossroads, the church stood in for the supposed Arizona-area Native American souvenir stand that Lucy (aka Britney Spears), Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), Mimi (aka Taryn Manning), and Ben (aka Anson Mount) stop at during their journey from Louisiana to California.  It is while at the stand that Lucy asks her friends for advice on whether she should show up at her estranged mother’s house unannounced or call her beforehand.

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Ironically enough, even though the church is supposed to be a roadside souvenir stand in the movie, for whatever reason producers decided to leave the Calvary Baptist Church sign up during the filming.

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In Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2, the Sanctuary Adventist Church stood in for the supposed El Paso, Texas-area Two Pines Wedding Chapel where the Deadly Viper Assassination Team (aka Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, and David Carradine) attempt to kill “the Bride” (aka Uma Thurman).

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I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the church, which you can see a photograph of here, was also used in the production of both films.

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The church has also been featured in numerous other productions, as well.  In fact, the intersection of 198th Street East and East Avenue G, where the church is located, is quite a famous little stretch of land.  In the 1981 movie True Confessions, the Sanctuary Adventist Church is where Detective Tom Spellacy (aka Robert Duvall) visits his brother Father Des Spellacy (aka Robert DeNiro).

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The 1999 Jean-Claude Van Damme action flick Dessert Heat (which, for some reason, is also named Inferno), was filmed almost in its entirety in both the former High Vista Diner and the sundries store located directly across the street from the Sanctuary Adventist Church.  The church is visible in the background throughout the vast majority of the movie. 

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Jubal  Early (aka Pat Morita) is also shown ringing the church bell at one point in the movie, although that bell is no longer there in real life.

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In Desert Heat, the High Vista Diner is where both Rhonda Reynolds (aka Gabrielle Fitzpatrick) and Dottie Matthews (aka Jaime Pressly) worked.  In real life, the place was not a real working restaurant, but, much like Four Aces and Club Ed, was solely built for use as a filming location.  Sadly though, the structure was torn down back in early 2008 and is now nothing more than a dirt lot.  You can see a photograph of what it used to look like here and here.

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Right next to the former High Vista Diner location is another vacant building which stood in for the Elis Emporium Sundries and Surplus store in Desert Heat.  And while that structure is still currently standing, I am not sure for how long that will be the case.

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As you can in the above photographs, the building does not look to be in the best of shape, although it is apparently still available for filming.  Winking smile

True Confessions Grocery Store

The Elis Emporium structure was also visible in the background of the opening scene of True Confessions and I do believe that it was a real working grocery store at one point in time.

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The little motel that Henry Howard (aka Robert Symonds) and his wife (aka Priscilla Pointer) owned in Desert Heat used to be located directly behind the Elis Emporium building, but it has also since been torn down.

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In Nurse Betty, the High Vista Café stood in for the supposed Williams, Arizona-area Canyon Ranch Bar where Betty (aka Renee Zellweger), and later Wesley (aka Chris Rock) and Charlie (aka Morgan Freeman), stop while making their way towards California.

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I am fairly certain that the interior of the Canyon Ranch Bar was filmed elsewhere though, as it looks nothing like the interior of the diner from Desert Heat and also appears to be quite a bit larger than the former High Vista Diner building.  My guess is that the interior Canyon Ranch Bar scenes were filmed on a soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. 

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The Kill Bill church is also just barely visible in the background of Nurse Betty in the scene in which Charlie and Wesley arrive at the Canyon Ranch Bar.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  Smile

Stalk It: The Sanctuary Adventist Church, aka the Kill Bill church, is located at the intersection of 198th Street East and East Avenue G in Lancaster.  The High Vista Diner was formerly located directly across the street from the church at the southeast corner of 198th Street East and East Avenue G.  The Elis Emporium Sundries and Surplus Store from Desert Heat is located at the southwest corner of 198th Street East and East Avenue G.