Be sure to head over to Discover Los Angeles today to check out my latest article, about restaurants featured in movies and television shows.
Lance’s House from “Pulp Fiction”
Last month, fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, came to town, along with his super-sweet mom, for a little filming locations vacation, and the three of us spent a whole day together, stalking pretty much all of Los Angeles, from one end of the city to the other. For this adventure, Chas had compiled an extensively detailed list of various movie locales, along with maps to each and a driving timeline. I know – it was all so Monica Gellar of him. LOVE it! Anyway, one of the locations on Chas’ list was the Craftsman-style residence where drug-dealer Lance (aka Eric Stoltz) and his wife, Jody (aka Rosanna Arquette), lived – and where Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) saved Mia Wallace’s (aka Uma Thurman’s) life – in the 1994 black comedy Pulp Fiction. Chas found the house, thanks to a very helpful crew member, in early 2010 while attempting to track down all of the locations from the movie – an endeavor at which, I am very happy to report, he succeeded. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.
[ad]
Because the Grim Cheaper and I had once dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace for Halloween many, many moons ago, I was extremely excited to stalk Lance’s house. (Sorry for the poor quality of the above photograph – it was taken on actual film so I had to scan it in order to post it here.)
Lance’s house was featured in a very brief, but very memorable scene, during the “Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace’s Wife” portion of Pulp Fiction, in which after visiting Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which I blogged about back in March, Mia accidentally overdoses on some heroin that Vincent had stashed in his jacket pocket. When Vincent discovers Mia on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive, he drives her to his drug dealer, Lance’s, home in the hopes that Lance can help her. It is there that Vincent winds up giving Mia an adrenaline shot, saving her life.
In the scene, Vincent crashes his car into the front of Lance’s house, destroying the roof and part of the porch.
I am very happy to report that the residence’s roof and porch are currently intact and that, despite the property’s shabby appearance onscreen, as you can see above, it is actually quite adorable in person.
And while the apartment building across the street from Lance’s house still looks very much the same as it did in the movie;
there is now, sadly, a fence located on the eastern side of the property, which blocks the neighboring lawn that is pictured in the above screen capture from view.
And while I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming, I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs online to verify that hunch.
Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Pulp Fiction filming locations page here.
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Lance’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 3519 La Clede Avenue in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Jack Rabbit Slim’s Restaurant from “Pulp Fiction”
This past Tuesday night, I received a very exciting text from fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, letting me know that one of his readers had finally, finally tracked down the exterior of the fictional Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant where Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) took Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) for dinner in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. When I first saw Pulp Fiction just about seventeen years ago, I thought Jack Rabbit Slim’s, which Vincent describes as a “wax museum with a pulse”, was just about the coolest place ever! With its slot car race tracks, wait staff dressed up to resemble stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, and James Dean, and booths fashioned out of classic cars, the restaurant could not have been more up my alley! In fact, the diner was one of the places I most wanted to stalk upon moving to Los Angeles a little over a decade ago. So imagine my surprise – and total devastation – when I found out that it was not a real place, but a set that had been created solely for the filming of the movie. Such an incredible bummer! I always thought the producers should have built a real Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant after the movie became so successful, but, alas, they never did. Why oh why do I always have to think of everything? Anyway, I could NOT have been more excited about Chas’ news, so I ran right out to stalk the place yesterday afternoon.
The exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s only showed up very briefly in Pulp Fiction, in the scene in which Vincent takes Mia out for dinner at a place of her choosing at the behest of her husband, Marsellus Wallace (aka Ving Rhames).
[ad]
It is while out in front of Jack Rabbit Slim’s that Vincent begs Mia to take him to another restaurant so that he can get a steak, to which Mia replies, “You can get a steak here, Daddio. Don’t be a . . . “ and she then proceeds to draw a square on the screen with her fingers, which was one of my very favorite moments of the film.
At the time of the filming, the building which stood in for Jack Rabbit Slim’s was a recently-shuttered bowling alley named Grand Central Bowl, which you can see photographs of here. The property is currently owned by The Walt Disney Disney Company and is a part of their Grand Central Business Center. The 125-acre center is on the site of Los Angeles’ first major airport – the now-defunct Grand Central Air Terminal, which shut down due to a decline in business in 1959. The space was transformed into a large office park shortly thereafter, much of which was leased by the Walt Disney Company beginning in 1961. In 1997, Disney purchased the entire 125-acre property and it currently serves as the headquarters for Walt Disney Imagineering. Because Pulp Fiction was produced by Miramax, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, it makes sense that producers chose to film the Jack Rabbit Slim’s exterior where they did.
Sadly, as you can see in the above photographs, the Jack Rabbit Slim’s building is currently surrounded by a large cement wall and is not very visible from the street.
According to Wikipedia, the interior of the Jack Rabbit Slim’s set was built in a warehouse in Culver City and, at a cost of $150,000, was the largest line item in the production’s entire budget!
Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for letting me know about this location!
Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant, from Pulp Fiction, is located at 1435 Flower Street, on the southwest corner of Sonora Avenue and Flower Street, in Glendale. The property is located inside of Disney’s Grand Central Business Center, which is private property, so please do not trespass.
Mia Wallace’s House from “Pulp Fiction”
A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, set his sights on tracking down every single location featured in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. Well, as soon as I found out about this bold undertaking, I begged him to find the ultra-modern abode belonging to Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) in the flick, which was, of course, the location I was most interested in stalking (besides the ‘50s inspired Jack Rabbit Slims restaurant, which unfortunately doesn’t exist in real life). And, sure enough, he did! Chas somehow managed to track down a crew member from the film who remembered that Mia’s residence was located somewhere in Beverly Hills a few miles north of Sunset Boulevard. So, Chas immediately got to cyberstalking and I am happy to report found the abode fairly quickly. And once he gave me Mia’s address, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, the gate pictured above is pretty much the only part of the property that is visible from the street. 🙁
I was so hoping to see the home’s main entryway, as that is the area of the house that is most recognizable from Pulp Fiction, but alas that was not to be. 🙁
You can catch a slight (very, very slight) glimpse of the residence if you drive a bit north of the property . . .
[ad]
. . . . and another slight view of it if you drive a bit south of the main gates. Aside from those two limited views, though, there unfortunately isn’t a whole lot to see at this location. Such a bummer!
But that’s why God created real estate listings! While doing some research on the property earlier today, I not only stumbled upon a real estate website advertising the home (which is currently for sale at a price that is only made known upon request – yikes!), but a YouTube video, as well (see below)! Score! And, as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures, it seems that the real life interior of the residence was also used in the filming of Pulp Fiction. So cool!
Even the home’s real life bathroom was used in the scene in which Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) tries to talk himself out of wanting to get together with Mia. So cool!
In real life, the home, which was built in 1960, boasts three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, measures 4,015 square feet and sits on almost a full acre of land. And while the real estate listing does boast that the “gated celebrity view estate” (and I’m not even really sure what that phrase means!) features an infinity pool and “state of the art electronics and security systems”, for whatever reason it fails to mention its cinematic cameo! If I was the property’s real estate agent, you can bet its appearance on the silver screen would be my main selling point! Hello! I mean, that’s bound to drive the price up at least a few dollars. 😉
Big THANK YOU to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for finding this location! 🙂
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: Mia Wallace’s house from Pulp Fiction is located at 1541 Summitridge Drive in Beverly Hills.