Tom Hanks locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 19, 2013November 18, 2013

The Stuart Building from “That Thing You Do!”

Back in early October, upon returning home from doing some That Thing You Do! stalking in Orange (you can read my posts on the locations I stalked here, here and here), I popped in my DVD of the 1996 flick to re-watch it for the first time in years. I was absolutely shocked – and floored – to discover in the course of the viewing that The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, an architecturally-stunning Pasadena apartment complex that I toured while house-hunting in 2006, had been featured in the movie. Because I had not taken any photos of The Stuart during the tour, I ran right out to re-stalk the place while I was in L.A. last week.

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The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa was originally constructed as the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company’s (they created Mylanta!) main manufacturing facility and office headquarters in 1958. The New Formalist-style structure, which is set back 150 feet from Foothill Boulevard and which was originally known as the Stuart Company Building, was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone and took two years to complete. (Stone also fashioned Radio City Music Hall in New York and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.) The Stuart’s 9.4-acre grounds were designed by legendary landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church.

The flat-roofed building, which boasts a cast concrete block screen façade and a large linear reflecting pool with fountains, won the National First Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects and was featured on the cover of Time magazine the year it was completed.

Arthur O. Hanisch, the Stuart Company’s forward-thinking owner, sought comfort for his employees in the construction of the building and assigned several recreational areas to the 35,000-square-foot site, including an atrium with a gorgeous open staircase, a garden court, a dining lounge, a pool, a pool house, a large terrace, and an outdoor shade pavilion. As you can see below, the two-story atrium is pretty darn striking! There’s a reason I remembered it all these years later while watching That Thing You Do!

In 1990, the Stuart Company, which had been named in honor of Arthur O. Hanisch’s son, was purchased by Johnson and Johnson/Merck Pharmaceuticals Co. The Stuart Company Building was shuttered shortly thereafter and, in 1993, was put on the market for $16 million. A year later, it was purchased by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, who intended to bulldoze it and construct a metro station on the property. Thankfully, the Pasadena Heritage group immediately stepped in and nominated the Stuart for National Registry status to protect it from demolition. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. During the interim, while its fate was being decided, the building sat vacant and, sadly, fell victim to vandals and transients. Then, in 2002, the site was purchased by a development company named BRE Properties and a multi-million dollar restoration project was begun. BRE also started construction on an upscale 188-unit apartment complex directly behind the Stuart Building, which became known as The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa. Today, the arresting atrium serves as a leasing office and communal space for residents.

In That Thing You Do!, the Stuart Company Building’s atrium masqueraded as the Play-Tone Records headquarters where The Wonders – Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott), Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – posed for publicity photos upon first arriving in Los Angeles.

The Stuart Company Building was also featured in the 2000 made-for-television movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, in which it stood in for the fertility center visited by Fran (Sharon Stone) and Kal (Ellen DeGeneres). Several areas of the property were used in the filming, including the atrium;

a hallway;

a waiting room;

and an office.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa, from That Thing You Do!, is located at 3360 East Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena. You can visit the complex’s official website here.

November 7, 2013November 6, 2013

Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain from “That Thing You Do!”

Another That Thing You Do! locale that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while the two of us were in the city of Orange in early October was Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain, which popped up twice in the 1996 flick. And while I really wanted to grab a bite there, sadly the GC and I had just eaten prior to arriving in Orange. It was still extremely cool to see the place, which is Orange County’s oldest drugstore and the city of Orange’s oldest continually operating business, in person, though.

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The pharmacy portion of Watson’s was originally founded on Glassell Street by a pharmacist named Keller E. Watson, Sr. in 1899. Two years later, K.E. Watson’s, as it was then known, was moved around the corner to a building on East Chapman Avenue where it has remained ever since (although it has occupied various different storefronts). In 1915, Keller added a soda fountain to the site and Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain was born. When Keller retired in the 1930s, his son, Keller E. Watson, Jr., took over the operations until he, too, retired in 1965. The shop subsequently went through a succession of different owners and then, in 1971, Scott Parker, a pharmacist from Utah, purchased a portion of it. Scott took over the site completely in 1986 and, while the pharmacy section was closed in 2011, the Parker family still runs the establishment to this day.

As you can see below, walking inside the eatery is like taking a step back in time. Besides serving up hamburgers, shakes and its famous malts, the place also sells gifts and cards, so, of course, I just had to do a little shopping while I was there. Winking smile

Watson Drugs first popped up in That Thing You Do! in the scene in which Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) informed Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) that he had just accidentally hit her car, which was parked outside. As you can see below, both the exterior and the interior of the shop were dressed heavily for the shoot.

Watson’s later appeared in the scene in which Guy gave Faye and his fellow Wonders – Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), and T.B. Player (Ethan Embry) – portable radios so that they would be able to keep an ear out for their song at all times.

Thanks to its old-fashioned charm, Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain has long been a favorite of location managers. In the 1987 made-for-television movie The Stepford Children (which looks pretty good, shockingly!), the diner was where Laura Harding (Barbara Eden) told her husband, Steven Harding (Don Murray), that she wanted to leave Stepford and move to a new town.

In 2004, the interior of Watson’s masqueraded as two different Massachusetts-area locales in the Season 1 episode of Medical Investigation titled “Progeny.” It first stood in for the soda shop where a child named Joey White (Adam Taylor Gordon) had a seizure and collapsed. The space was dressed heavily for the shoot, though, and is not very recognizable in the scene.

And, for whatever reason, producers chose to use a different location to stand in for the shop’s exterior, as you can see below.

Later in the episode, Watson’s popped up as the diner where Dr. Stephen Connor (Neal McDonough) and his team – Dr. Natalie Durant (Kelli Williams), Dr. Miles McCabe (Christopher Gorham), Eva Rossi (Anna Belknap), and Frank Powell (Troy Winbush) – discussed what might be causing Joey’s ailment.

Once again, a different location stood in for the coffee shop’s exterior. That exterior, which was also used as Rosalita’s Bar on the television series Happy Endings, can be found on the Paramount Studios backlot.

In the 2006 comedy The Benchwarmers, Watson Drugs was where Gus (Rob Schneider) met his new statistician, Sammy Sprinkler (Alex Warrick). Both the exterior . . .

. . . and interior of the diner were used in the scene.

According to the Filmed in Orange website, Watson’s appeared in Fallen Angel, but, unfortunately, I could not find a copy of the 1945 production with which to make screen captures for this post. And while the eatery’s website asserts that the spot was featured in the 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run, I scanned through the flick and did not see it anywhere. Watson’s website also states that Don Knotts, Shelley Hack and Jimmy Smits have all shot commercials on the premises and that George W. Bush made a stop there to pick up a malt while campaigning for the presidency in 2000.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain, from That Thing You Do!, is located at 116 East Chapman Avenue in Orange. You can visit the eatery’s official website here. Tiddlywinks Toys and Games, aka Patterson’s Appliances from the movie, is located just around the corner at 129 North Glassell Street. The That Thing You Do! mailbox scene was filmed just a few storefronts north of Tiddlywinks, in front of 173 North Glassell Street. The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

Patterson’s Appliances from “That Thing You Do!”

After stalking the downtown Orange spot where the That Thing You Do! mailbox scene was filmed (which I blogged about yesterday), I dragged the Grim Cheaper just a few feet south to stalk the storefront that was used as Patterson’s Appliances, drummer Guy Patterson’s (Tom Everett Scott) family’s shop, in the 1996 flick. Thank goodness for the Seeing Stars website and its That Thing You Do! filming locations page, which had the address of Patterson’s Appliances listed, because, as I mentioned yesterday, my trip to Orange was completely unexpected and I, therefore, had not done any prior research. Which is a shame, too, because, as it turns out, the town, which is easily one of the cutest places I have ever visited, has appeared in countless productions over the years, many of them favorites of mine. (Check out this amazeballs list of the various movies and televisions shows that have been filmed in Orange and the corresponding addresses used. I wish every city would compile a database like that! LOVE IT!) Ah well, it looks like I will just have to make another stalking expedition to Orange someday. Smile

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Patterson’s Appliances was one of the main locations used in That Thing You Do! and the supposed 1960s-era Eerie, Pennsylvania storefront popped up repeatedly throughout the movie. While Orange does have a very old-fashioned feel to it, production designers heavily dressed the area for the shoot, as you can see below. Even without the extra dressing, though, the site is still very recognizable from its onscreen appearance. In fact, being there brought me right back to when I first saw the flick in 1996, which I could NOT have been more excited about.

At the time of the filming, the Patterson’s storefront was vacant, which allowed designers to thoroughly transform it into a 1964 appliance shop, complete with old-fashioned dishwashers, radios and television sets.

Today, the space houses a toy store named Tiddlywinks Toys and Games. Thankfully, the exterior still looks much the same today as it did in November and December 1995 when That Thing You Do! was filmed.

When Tiddlywinks moved in, the owners changed a few aspects of the décor, but for the most part the set-up is still very recognizable from That Thing You Do! Sadly, shops tend to get a little skittish over interior photographs being taken and I did not feel like arguing with anyone on that particular day, so I failed to snap any images of the inside of the place. But you can check out some pictures of the filming, as well as a photo of the interior of the then vacant shop dressed as Patterson’s Appliances, here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Tiddlywinks Toys and Games, aka Patterson’s Appliances from That Thing You Do!, is located at 129 North Glassell Street in Orange. You can visit the store’s official website here. The mailbox scene from That Thing You Do! was filmed just a few storefronts north in front of 173 North Glassell Street. The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

November 5, 2013September 29, 2017

The “That Thing You Do!” Mailbox Scene

Well folks, this post sadly marks the end to my 2013 Haunted Hollywood locales, which is especially depressing because this year was easily the Best. Halloween. Ever. Once again, the GC and I (dressed up as The Bachelorette’s Emily Maynard and Jef Holm) headed out to our friends’ house in Malibu. (And yes, I am aware that Emily and Jef are no longer together, but neither are Brenda and Dylan and we dressed up like them, too, one Halloween. 😉 ) Dick Van Dyke ended up not hosting his usual Halloween shindig this year (you can read about his 2011 fest here and his 2012 fest here), so we went instead to a party that our friends’ friends were having in a different gated community nearby. And let me tell you, it was UH-MA-ZING.

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Not only was every single house in the neighborhood dressed to the nines (I swear, nobody does Halloween like the ‘Bu) . . .

. . . but there were celebrities galore, including none other than Gwyneth Paltrow! The GC actually spotted Gwyneth first and, while I just about died of excitement on the spot, because she was with her children, I restrained myself from asking for a photo. I obsessed about it, though, for the next thirty minutes or so and eventually, without me knowing, the GC went up to her and said, “Gwyneth, could you please take a picture with my wife before her head explodes?” Next thing I knew, there was a tap on my shoulder and GP was standing in front of me, saying “I heard you wanted a photo.” Yeah, I was DYING. And absolutely falling in love with the GC all over again. Smile Gwyneth truly could NOT have been nicer (easily one of the sweetest celebs that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting) and I adore her even more now than I did before. So suck it, Vanity Fair! Winking smile

Also in attendance were Cindy Crawford . . .

. . . and Neil Patrick Harris. Like I said, Best. Halloween. Ever. Not sure how I’m ever going to recover from this one! Here’s hoping next year is just as good. Smile

In the meantime, though, it is back to regular, non-haunted postings here at IAMNOTASTALKER. So here goes! As I mentioned in my post about the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, in early October Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, hosted her bachelorette party at my favorite place in the entire world, Disneyland. Because we did not want to make the long drive back to Palm Springs that night, the GC and I got a hotel room in the area, which turned out to be a fateful decision. The following morning, on our way out of town, I did a GPS search for a nearby Starbucks and when I saw that the closest outpost was located in the city of Orange, I just about had a heart attack as my very favorite movie scene EVER had been filmed in Orange – the mailbox scene from 1996’s That Thing You Do! So I immediately braced the GC for the fact that we would be making a little unexpected stalking detour.

In the scene, Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) is listening to a portable radio and mailing letters in what is supposedly 1960s downtown Eerie, Pennsylvania, when she hears “That Thing You Do!”, her boyfriend’s band’s song, playing on the radio for the very first time. She starts screaming and runs down the street towards an Army/Navy store where she finds fellow band member T.B. Player (Ethan Embry). The two then race to Patterson’s Appliances, where another band member, Guy Patterson (cutie Tom Everett Scott), works. (I will be blogging about the location of Patterson’s Appliances tomorrow.) Guy turns all the radios in the store to the station playing the song and, shortly thereafter, the other two members of the group, Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech) and Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), show up and proceed to dance around manically. Liv Tyler is sheer perfection in the scene and it is physically impossible not to be happy while watching it.

You can take a look at the That Thing You Do! mailbox scene by clicking below. Go ahead, try not to smile while watching – I dare you. Winking smile

In the scene, the mailbox was set up in front of an empty storefront located at 173 North Glassell Street, in pretty much the exact spot where the red sandwich board sign is situated in the photograph below.

I found this locale thanks to the Seeing Stars website and my trusty iPhone. As soon as the GC and I arrived in Orange, I watched the scene on YouTube and saw that the mailbox was located across the street from a Woolworth store. Seeing Stars listed the address of the store that masqueraded as Woolworths as 160 North Glassell Street, so from there it was simply a matter of matching up the angles of what appeared onscreen to the real life buildings. You can check out some images of the Woolworths building and the rest of the downtown area dressed for the filming on the City of Orange website here.

For more stalking fun, be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The mailbox scene from That Thing You Do! was filmed in front of what is now a vacant storefront located at 173 North Glassell Street in Orange. The building that was dressed to look like a Woolworths in the flick can be found across the street at 160/162 North Glassell.

January 13, 2012January 12, 2012

The “Larry Crowne” Cul-de-sac

The last Larry Crowne location that I stalked recently – and there will be more coming, believe me, because Mike, from MovieShotsLA, has found quite a few others – is the cul-de-sac where Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) and his garage-sale-hosting neighbors, Lamar Johnson (aka Cedric the Entertainer) and wife B’Ella Johnson (aka Taraji P. Henson), lived. Mike tracked down this locale quite a few months back, long before I had ever even seen the movie, in fact. Thanks to the flick’s production notes, he knew that the cul-de-sac was located somewhere in Northridge, so he searched aerial views of the area and, sure enough, it was not long before he found the right place. Whoo hoo! So, last weekend, before heading to West Hollywood to grab some cocktails at Nobu, aka the Ferris Bueller Day’s Off restaurant which I blogged about yesterday, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the San Fernando Valley to stalk the Larry Crowne houses.

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Larry’s one-story, ranch-style residence, which he eventually gives back to the bank due to a foreclosure, shows up countless times throughout the movie.

I absolutely love the outfit Larry wore on moving day, by the way. I am so gonna have to get something similar for the GC! Winking smile But I digress.

In real life, Larry’s house is pretty darn huge, although its appearance from the street is somewhat deceiving. While its façade seems to be rather small, the dwelling actually boasts 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, a whopping 3,900 square feet of living space, and a .52-acre plot of land. I am very happy to report, though, that aside from a change in paint color, the place looks pretty much the same in person as it did onscreen. For some reason, producers covered over the front window and window-box with a large amount of foliage during the filming, though. I am guessing that was done to make the home appear more masculine, ’cause nothing screams “a single man lives here” like a window box full of red annuals. Winking smile His garage also seems to have been covered over for the movie, most likely to make the residence appear to be smaller than it actually is.

According to the Larry Crowne production notes, the interior of Larry’s house, where he learned the benefits of feng shui, was a set that was built inside of a soundstage at what, I believe, was Universal Studios.

Lamar and B’Ella’s house also shows up numerous times throughout the movie.

And it, too, looks much the same in person as it appeared onscreen.

What I was not expecting, though, was that the Larry Crowne houses were not both located at the end of the cul-de-sac, as they seemed to be in the movie. As you can see above, while Larry’s house is located at the end, Lamar and B’Ella’s is actually on the side.

I had originally envisioned the properties to be situated in the same manner that the two houses are situated above and was a bit thrown off when I got there and realized that they were actually located kitty-corner to where they had seemed to be onscreen.

You can see where the homes are situated in the aerial view pictured above.

And while Larry and Lamar’s street name was referred to as “Derby Court” in the movie, producers did use both of the properties’ real life address numbers.

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Larry Crowne’s house from Larry Crowne is located at 8656 Balcom Avenue in Northridge. Lamar and B’Ella’s house is located next door at 8642 Balcom Avenue.

January 11, 2012January 10, 2012

Mercedes’ Apartment Building from “Larry Crowne”

The only Larry Crowne filming location that fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, did not track down was the mid-century-style apartment building where East Valley Community College professor Mercedes Tainot (aka Julia Roberts) – that’s “T-A-I-N-O-T, not Tae Bow, not Tai Chi, not Tie Knot” – lived with her philandering husband, Dean Tainot (aka Bryan Cranston). And I just have to say here that I absolutely LOVED the scene in which “professional blog writer” Dean, trying to defend the fact that he does not have an actual job, says to Mercedes, “I had four postings today alone! Blog-caster . . . Sky-scan . . . Parse-it-twelve.com . . . ”, to which she responds, “They are not postings, they’re comments!” Cracks me up every time! Anyway, although Mercedes’ apartment building looks very much like a San-Fernando-Valley-area structure, I had an inkling that it might actually be located in Pasadena and, sure enough, it was! A quick input of the terms “Larry Crowne”, “filming” and “Pasadena” led me to this link on the Before the Trailer website, which stated that the flick had done some shooting at 325 South Orange Grove Boulevard on May 25th of last year. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place this past weekend.

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Mercedes and Dean’s apartment building showed up numerous times throughout Larry Crowne and, because I just really liked the look of the place, I had been absolutely desperate to stalk it.

And I am very happy to report that it did not disappoint – the complex looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen! The portion of the building that appeared in Larry Crowne is not actually the structure’s main entrance on Orange Grove Boulevard, but a side entrance located just around the corner on Arbor Street.

Which is the same area where Dean was dropped off by a taxi cab after spending the night in jail.

While we were stalking the place, we happened to speak with some residents of the building who honestly could NOT have been nicer. They not only answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and told me that Tom Hanks had been extremely nice and that the shoot, which took one day to complete, was an incredibly fun experience, but they also pointed me in the exact direction of Mercedes’ apartment. Whoo-hoo!

So I, of course, just had to take a photograph in front of her door. Smile

As you can see above, Mercedes’ apartment looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen.

As does the neighbor’s apartment, which appeared in the background of the scene in which Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) brought Mercedes home on his scooter.

Only the exterior of the apartment building was used in the filming. According to the Larry Crowne production notes, the interior of Mercedes and Dean’s (what they call) townhouse was just a set that was built inside of a soundstage at what I believe was Universal Studios. I am seriously in love with the Tainot’s kitchen, by the way. Sigh!

And I also so LOVE how the art department matched the interior detailing of the apartment to the real-life iron detailing of the building, as you can see above. Talk about attention to detail!

The actual unit where filming took place, Unit 325, which measures 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, and 1,396 square feet, was for sale recently. As you can see above, the interior looks nothing like the set that was created for the filming. You can check out the place’s real estate listing here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Mercedes’ apartment building from Larry Crowne is located at 325 South Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena. The side of the building that is shown in the movie can be found on Arbor Street, just around the corner from the main entrance.

January 6, 2012January 6, 2012

The “Larry Crowne” Apartment Building

Two additional Larry Crowne filming locations that I stalked this past weekend were Talia’s, the vintage clothing store owned by Talia Francesco (aka the adorable Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and the apartment building where Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks) lived at the very end of the flick, both of which are housed inside of the same corner edifice in Altadena. I found this locale thanks to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who, while doing some online research on the movie, came across an old listing on the Cazoodle Apartment website which not only announced that Tom Hanks’ Larry Crowne apartment was then available for rent, but also provided its exact location. Yay! So last Saturday afternoon, while doing some New Year’s Eve stalking, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out there to stalk the place.

The non-descript two-story building shows up several times in Larry Crowne – first in the scene in which Talia, while driving around on her scooter, notices a “For Rent” sign in a vacant storefront window and stops to take a closer look.

It next appears in the scene in which Larry stops by Talia’s new store to reprimand her for dropping out of East Valley Community College. It is while there that he informs her that her new tattoo does not in fact spell out “courageous spirit” in Japanese as she had intended, but “soy sauce”. LOL

And finally, the building is featured in the ending scene in which Larry invites his former teacher Mercedes Tainot (aka Julia Roberts) to his new apartment for some homemade French toast. (If you’ll notice in the first screenshot pictured above, the apostrophe in the signage for Talia’s store is ostensibly missing. Larry was right – Talia definitely should have stayed in school. Then perhaps she would not have made such an egregious error. Winking smile It looks like I need to submit this one to When Write is Wrong, my good friend Owen’s typos and grammatical errors blog.)

As you can see above, Talia’s store (or should I say Talias store? Winking smile ) was dressed heavily for the filming of Larry Crowne and does not look at all in person as it did onscreen. The building was vacant during the time of the filming (and still is today), so producers were able to do with it what they wanted without having to disturb any operating businesses.

And although we are only given a brief view of the interior of the store through the front windows in the movie, I just had to snap some pics of it, nonetheless.

When I first watched Larry Crowne, I had assumed that the little courtyard area outside of Larry’s apartment had been a set due to the fact that it was so incredibly idyllic and picturesque. But I am very happy to report that the courtyard is, in fact, real!

Sadly though, as you can see above, the stairwell that leads to the second floor, where Larry’s courtyard is located, is gated and not accessible to the public. Boo! If only I had known about this place back when it was available for rent, I totally would have scheduled a viewing! Winking smile

You can catch a minor glimpse of the courtyard if you venture across the street, though. According to the Cazoodle Apartment listing that Mike found, the 530-square-foot, 1-bedroom, 1-bath unit where Larry supposedly lived at the end of Larry Crowne was being offered for lease back in August of last year at a rate of $895 per month. And no, that was not a typo – the asking price was $895 per month for 530 square feet! Welcome to California. LOL

Pictured above are the photographs from that real estate listing and, as you can see, Larry’s apartment is pretty darn adorable.

In the movie, Larry’s address is noted as being 4225 Harbor #7.

And, as you can see above, producers even went so far as to change the address number plaque for the filming, so had the real estate listing not touted the apartment’s Larry Crowne connection, this would have been a very tough find! Nice work, Mike!

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On a Larry Crowne side-note – Back in June of last year, fave website AltadenaBlog posted a fabulous story about the filming, which you can read here. Apparently, during a break from the shoot, Tom Hanks wandered a few blocks up Lake Avenue to do some shopping at Webster’s Fine Stationers and not only posed for a picture with the owners, but also told them that he loved family-owned stationary stores. So incredibly cool! Especially since the GC and I had our own little run-in with Tom Hanks a few years back and let’s just say that he was less than friendly. Ah, let’s call a spade a spade here – the guy was a complete and total jerk and for a long while after that the GC refused to see any of his movies! But after reading the Webster’s Fine Stationers story on AltadenaBlog and after hearing how nice Tom was to Jose, the owner of Frank’s Restaurant where Larry Crowne filming also took place, it would seem that the actor has since changed his ways. One can hope, at least!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Larry Crowne apartment building is located at 906 Boston Street in Altadena. Thalia’s store from the movie is located at 2104 North Lake Avenue in Altadena.

January 4, 2012February 2, 2012

Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant from “Larry Crowne”

A few days before Christmas, while I was wallowing in a horrible head cold, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch the 2011 flick Larry Crowne. Neither of us had very high hopes for the movie as it had received such horrible reviews, but I am very happy to report that we both ended up loving it. So much so that we watched it again a few days later when my parents came to town to celebrate Christmas with us. The whimsical storyline centers around Larry Crowne (aka Tom Hanks), a middle-aged former Navy chef who is forced to rethink his life after being fired from his job at the local U-Mart Store. He decides to enroll in a nearby community college where he not only makes friends with a group of wildly eccentric and endearing characters, but also finds his life finally start to take shape. If you have yet to see Larry Crowne, I highly recommend ignoring the critics and renting it! Anyway, one of the main locations featured in the flick was Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant – a Burbank-area eatery that I had passed by countless times during my ten-plus years of living in Los Angeles, but had, for whatever reason, never dined at. So I immediately added the place to my “To-Stalk” list and dragged the GC right on out there as soon as we returned home from visiting my grandmother in Reno this past weekend.

As we pulled up to Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, I spotted an article about Larry Crowne posted on the café’s front door and knew right away that I was going to LOVE the place.

And I am very happy to report that I did! Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, which is also sometimes called Frank’s Steak House, first opened its doors in 1957 and not much has changed since. Walking into the diner is like stepping back in time about fifty years – and I mean that in the best way possible.

The interior of Frank’s, with its dark vinyl booths, popcorn ceiling, and Formica countertops, is straight out of the 1950s and it is not at all hard to see why countless location managers have flocked there over the years. The place also serves up some FABULOUS food at very reasonable prices, which pleased the GC to no end. I opted for a mushroom cheeseburger with French fries and a side of ranch dressing and it was all simply amazing – especially the steak fries, which were extremely thick and seasoned in a way that was reminiscent of the fries served at fave restaurant chain Red Robin. The GC ordered the homemade split pea soup and it was also out of this world.

I was absolutely floored when I spotted a photograph of Tom Hanks posing with Jose, Frank’s owner, on display on the wall next to the kitchen. As fate would have it, Jose happened to come over to chat with us while we were dining and, let me tell you, the guy could NOT have been nicer! He sat with us for a good twenty minutes and filled us in on the Larry Crowne shoot, which took six days to complete. Jose informed us that the cast and crew were some of the nicest that he has ever encountered – and he has encountered quite a few. He also told us about the restaurant’s vast filming history and showed us countless photographs that he had stored on his cell phone of the various filmings that have taken place on the premises and the numerous celebrities that have posed with him. As you can imagine, I was pretty much drooling the entire time.

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In Larry Crowne, Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant is featured repeatedly as the eatery where Larry and his scooter-riding friends hang out.

Later on in the movie, Larry gets a job working as a line cook in the restaurant’s kitchen.

That kitchen is pictured above.

Jose, who has been a chef for over forty years, actually acted as Tom Hanks’ cooking consultant during the filming of Larry Crowne and at one point had to step in to do some chopping for the actor. The hands you see above, which are supposedly Larry’s in the movie, are actually Jose’s. So incredibly cool!

In the Season 5 episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Squash It”, the exterior of Frank’s stood in for the Reno, Nevada-area diner where Valerie Malone (aka Tiffani Thiessen) convinced Ray Pruit (aka Jamie Walters) to return to Beverly Hills.

As you can see above, though, a different restaurant was used for the interior filming.

Jose informed us that Frank’s Coffee Shop had been featured in no less than 5 episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, one of which is the upcoming “Willows in the Wind”, which just so happens to be Marg Helgenber’s final episode. Unfortunately, Jose was unsure of the titles of the other four episodes filmed on the premises, but I was able to do some digging and tracked down two of them. Then, after publishing this post, a CSI message board led me to the other two. Win! Frank’s first appeared in the Season 6 episode titled “Rashomama” as the supposed Las Vegas, Nevada-area coffee shop where the car belonging to Nick Stokes (aka George Eads), as well as all of the crime scene evidence inside of it, was stolen.

And in the Season 7 episode titled “Law of Gravity”, Frank’s stood in for the restaurant where Michael Keppler (aka Liev Schreiber) ran into Frank McCarty (aka Len Cariou).

In the Season 9 episode titled “Mascara” (CSI’s 200th episode), Frank’s is where Dr. Raymond Langston (aka Laurence Fishburne) met up a few times with his former thesis student Sylvia Mallick (aka Aimee Deshayes).

And in the Season 11 episode titled “The List”, Catherine Willows (aka Marg Helgenberger) met up with Detective Vartann (aka Alex Carter) to discuss the case she was working on.

In the Season 2 episode of Parks and Recreation titled “Ron and Tammy”, Frank’s stood in for the supposed Pawnee, Indiana-area restaurant where Ron Swanson (aka Nick Offerman) took his ex-wife, Tammy Swanson (aka Megan Mullally), out for lunch.

Jose also let us know that Frank’s was featured in the 2003 flop Gigli, but I scanned through the movie yesterday while doing research for this post and did not see it anywhere. I did, however, spot it briefly in the flick’s trailer, so the scene that was filmed at Frank’s appears to have been left on the cutting room floor.

That scene can be viewed at the 2:18 mark when Larry Gigli (aka Ben Affleck) tells Ricki (aka Jennifer Lopez), “I got a confession. I think we’re good together.”

Fellow stalker Jason also let me know that Frank’s Restaurant was featured in Chris Daughty’s “No Surprise” music video.

Chris Daughty–“No Surprise” Video Filmed at Frank’s Coffee Shop & Restaurant in Burbank

You can watch that video by clicking above.

Jose also told us that Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant was featured in the A&E Network mini-series Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, but I scanned through it yesterday and did not spot the restaurant anywhere. He also told us that Criminal Minds had filmed on the premises recently, but I scanned through all of the Season 7 episodes that have aired so far and did not see it, so I am guessing that it will pop up in an upcoming episode in the very near future.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Frank’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, from Larry Crowne, is located at 916 West Olive Avenue in Burbank.