Simon Baker filming locations

January 9, 2012January 8, 2012

Charles W. Eliot Middle School from “The Mentalist”

Located directly across the street from the Larry Crowne apartment building in Altadena, which I blogged about last Friday, is Charles W. Eliot (not Elliot) Middle School – a very unique and arresting structure that looms over the neighborhood thanks to its large fortress-like bell tower. My veterinarian is located just up the street from Eliot and I had driven by the school countless times during my ten-plus years of living in Pasadena, and whenever my mom happened to be with me, she would comment, “That school is just so picturesque! I can guarantee you that it has been in a movie!” Well, as it turns out, she was right! I never did much research on the place, though, or even thought to stalk it, until January of 2010 when it popped up in the Season 2 episode of The Mentalist titled “Rose-Colored Glasses”, at which point I recognized it immediately. So, two weekends ago, after stalking the Larry Crowne apartment building, I dragged the Grim Cheaper across the street (and I say “drag” because even though it was located less than 10 yards away from where we were then standing, he complained about having to walk over to it) so that I could finally stalk the place.

Charles W. Eliot Middle School was originally founded in 1931 and, at the time, was known as Eliot Junior High School. It was named in honor of Charles William Eliot – a professor who, with a term of 40 years, became Harvard University’s longest-running president and transformed the institution into a premiere research college. Surprisingly, even though Eliot Middle School is extremely unique, I could find no information whatsoever about its architecture or its history. Hmph! I was able to dig up the names of a couple of the school’s famous alumni, though. As it turns out, not only did actor Edward Furlong attend Charles W. Eliot Middle School, but, in an unfortunate twist, so did Sirhan Sirhan, the Jordanian nationalist who assassinated presidential hopeful Bobby Kennedy on June 6, 1968.

As you can see above, the most recognizable and striking aspect of Charles W. Elliot Middle School is its tower. It is that tower that has also captured the imagination of the many location scouts who have returned time and time again to film on the school grounds.

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In the “Rose-Colored Glasses” episode of The Mentalist, Charles W. Eliot Middle School stood in for the supposed Northern-California-area Rancho Rosa High School where Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) and the rest of the CBI team investigated the murder of a married couple which took place at a 15-year high school reunion. In the episode, several areas of the school were used, including the rear blacktop;

the gym;

and the boy’s locker room.

Fellow stalker Allyn let me know that Charles W. Eliot Middle School was also featured prominently in the 1998 flick Devil in the Flesh. In the movie, Eliot was the school where Debbie Strand (aka Rose McGowan) was transferred to after her mother and her mother’s boyfriend were killed in a fire.

The real life interior of the school was also used in the production.

In the 1998 film Apt Pupil, Charles W. Eliot Middle School stood in for Santa Donato, the high school attended by Todd Bowden (aka Brad Renfro). And yes, that is none other than Ross Gellar himself – aka Friends’ star David Schwimmer – pictured in the last screen capture above!

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that cutie Joshua Jackson, aka Dawson’s Creek’s Pacey Witter, had a minor role in the flick, as well. Sigh. Love him!

The school’s interior was also featured in Apt Pupil. And, in an odd twist, a lawsuit was actually filed against the filmmakers for a scene that took place on location in the Eliot Middle School locker room. Three teenaged extras hired to act in a shower scene alleged that director Bryan Singer had forced them to strip naked for the shoot against their will. The lawsuit was ultimately dropped due to insufficient evidence, but you can read more about it on the Entertainment Weekly website here.

The interior of Charles W. Eliot Middle School also stood in for the interior of Haddonfield Elementary, the school attended by a young Michael Meyers (aka Daeg Faerch), in the 2007 Rob Zombie-directed Halloween.

The school’s library was also used as the library of the fictional Haddonfield High School, where Michael Meyers spied on his younger sister, Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton).

And, according to a March 1987 Los Angeles Times article, Charles W. Eliot Middle School was also set to be used as a location in a low-budget movie titled Night School. Unfortunately though, I could find no such movie listed on IMDB, so I am guessing that it was not ever completed.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Charles W. Eliot Middle School, from the “Rose-Colored Glasses” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 2184 North Lake Avenue in Altadena. Please remember that this is an active learning institution and you should not trespass or visit the grounds during school hours. The Larry Crowne apartment building is located directly across the street from Eliot at 906 Boston Street in Altadena. And Thalia’s store from Larry Crowne is located at 2104 North Lake Avenue in Altadena.

October 5, 2011September 29, 2017

The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall from “The Mentalist”

One spooky-type location that I have had on my To-Stalk list for just about forever now is the Macy’s department store located inside of the Burbank Town Center Mall, which was featured as a murder site in the Season 2 episode of fave show The Mentalist titled “Redemption”. And while I had recognized the location immediately while watching the episode way back in September of 2009 and had even stalked the Burbank Town Center Mall recently due to its appearance in another episode of The Mentalist, for whatever reason I had completely forgotten about Macy’s. So I promptly dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place this past weekend after doing some shopping at a nearby Ikea.

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In the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, CBI Agent Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) and her ne’er-do-well consultant Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) are called in to investigate the murder of a man in a supposed-Sacramento-area department store. The scene in which the two arrive at the store was filmed at the bottom of the escalators on Macy’s Second Floor, next to the MAC Cosmetics counter.

Lisbon and Jane are immediately escorted by Police Captain Bocanegra (aka Geoffrey Rivas) to the murder site in the store’s Men’s Department. It was due to this particular segment of the scene, in which Patrick and Jane walk over some unique green tile and wood flooring, that I recognized the episode had been shot at the Macy’s in Burbank. The GC and I once did some shopping in the Burbank Macy’s Men’s Department quite a few years back and while we were there I had commented on how pretty I thought the floors were. They did not look like typical department store floors and made me think of the upscale Herald Square Macy’s on 34th Street in New York in which the Men’s Department is composed of dark woods. Anyway, the image of those floors stuck with me, for whatever reason, so when I saw Lisbon and Jane walk over them in “Redemption”, I recognized them immediately.

Lisbon and Jane are then shown the bludgeoned body of Ivar Rasmussen, which was found in a little waiting area outside of the men’s dressing rooms. It is there that Patrick proceeds to smell the body in order to gather clues, infuriating Captain Bocanegra in the process.

Sadly, the area used for the filming of that scene was being redressed when we showed up to the stalk the place and was not very accessible.

But I did manage to snap a picture of a similar alcove located in a different section of the store.

After properly “sniffing out” the body, Jane proceeds downstairs to the Ground Level Furniture Department in order to interview the patrons who were in the store at the time of the bludgeoning.

It is there that he performs a ritual using the hands of one of the witnesses to lead him to the murder weapon, which turns out to be the base of a crystal wineglass.

After the murder weapon is found, a huge fight breaks out among the killer and the security guards, which ends up causing $250,000 worth of damage to the store. When Lisbon admonishes him for creating the ruckus, Jane says, “What? The case is closed isn’t it?” Ah, I so love Patrick Jane! Smile

That portion of the scene was filmed in Macy’s furniture/bedding/cookware department, which, amazingly enough, looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen. I thought for sure the production crew had dressed the area for the filming, but that does not actually appear to have been the case.

On a Mentalist side note – A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, called me up for some help after she discovered that she had locked her keys inside of her car while doing some shopping at the Burbank Town Center Mall. I headed over there and after calling Roadside Assistance and having them jimmy open the lock, we discovered that her keys were not, in fact, inside of the car after all. So I ventured inside the mall to see if anyone had turned them in to the security office. No one had and Pinky’s poor dad ended up having to drive all the way from Ventura to bring her a spare set – and, sadly, her originals have still yet to be found. FAIL! But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining, as they say, because a few days later I was watching the Season Premiere of The Mentalist, which was titled “Scarlet Ribbons”, and just about died when I noticed that a scene was filmed at the Burbank Town Center Mall security office! As I mentioned in the post I wrote about the show’s Season 3 Finale back in June, Patrick Jane finally killed Red John (aka Bradley Whitford) in the middle of the Burbank Town Center Mall at the very end of the episode. Well, when Agents Kimball Cho (aka Tim Kang) and Wayne Rigsby (aka Owain Yeoman) set out to investigate the killing in the Season 4 opener, one of their first stops was the mall’s real life security office, looking exactly as it had when I visited it only days before. SO incredibly cool!

That security office is pictured above. I had to take the photograph a bit on the down-low as I was afraid that one of the security guards might get upset if he saw me snapping any pictures of the place.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Macy’s at Burbank Town Center Mall, from the “Redemption” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 200 East Cypress Avenue in Burbank.

June 2, 2011June 2, 2011

Burbank Town Center Mall from the Season 3 Finale of “The Mentalist”

While watching the two-part Season 3 finale of fave show The Mentalist titled “Strawberries and Cream” a few weeks back, I just about died when I realized that the Burbank Town Center had stood in for the supposed Sacramento-area “Pinewood Shopping Mall” in the episode’s climatic final scene. While Burbank Town Center is not actually my local mall, I immediately recognized the place as the Grim Cheaper had taken me there on our very first date, just a little over a decade ago. We had first gone to see the movie Cast Away at a nearby theatre and then headed on over to the mall so that the GC could show me an antique carousel that used to be located there. Prior to our date, I had no idea of the carousel’s existence and thought it was so incredibly cool that the GC knew little tidbits about LA like that. I am pretty sure I fell in love with him right then! Smile And while the carousel was sold a few years back (I hear it is now located in the San Diego area), because we had spent at least a half an hour looking down upon it from the Center’s second floor, when that area of the mall popped up on The Mentalist I recognized it immediately. So yesterday, after getting my hair cut in Burbank, I decided to cruise on over there to snap a few pics of the place.

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In the “Strawberries and Cream” episode of The Mentalist (and a BIG warning here that there are major spoilers ahead, so if you have yet to watch the Season 3 finale and plan on doing so, you should STOP reading this post now), Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) sets up a sting operation in the middle of the mall in order to both prove that DLE Director Gale Bertram (aka Michael Gaston) is the CBI’s mole and to also hopefully discover the true identity of Red John, the serial killer who murdered his wife and daughter.

While there he ends up finally meeting and then killing Red John, who was played with perfection by The West Wing’s Bradley Whitford.

In what turned out to be my very favorite part of the episode, after shooting Red John and causing mass pandemonium in the mall, Patrick sits down calmly, finishes drinking his tea, and then calls out to the waitress, “Check please!” before surrendering himself to the authorities. LOL As you can see in the above screen captures, the central area of the mall, where the antique carousel used to be located, was decorated to look like a café for the filming.

Oh, how I wish they did actually serve espresso in that area of the mall! In reality, though, after the carousel was removed, a small – and not-very-aesthetically-pleasing – children’s train ride was placed there. Note to Starbucks – the Burbank Town Center is in desperate need of a cute café, pronto! Winking smile Photographs of the area which appeared on The Mentalist, taken from the mall’s second level, are pictured above.

And a view of that area from the mall’s bottom floor is pictured above.

The entrance to one of the Burbank Town Center’s garage areas was also used in the episode, but I completely forgot about that yesterday while I was stalking the place and failed to snap any pictures of it.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Burbank Town Center, from the “Strawberries and Cream” episode of The Mentalist, is located at 201 East Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank. You can visit the mall’s official website here. The area where Patrick Jane shot Red John is located in the very center of the mall, on the bottom level, in front of Old Navy and Shiekh Shoes. The parking garage entrance which appeared in the episode is located at 501 North Third Street.