Twins filming locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 22, 2010November 21, 2010

The Parking Garage from “Twins”

Last weekend, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the city of Glendale to do some stalking of the historic Alex Theatre, where the cast of Glee was recently spotted doing some filming for this year’s “Sectionals” episode which is set to air on December 7th. After finishing up at the theatre (which I will be blogging about after the episode of Glee premieres), we headed a few blocks up the street to stalk the parking garage where Al Greco (aka a very young David Caruso) worked in the 1988 movie Twins. And I have to say that in all of my years of stalking, this one was actually a first for me because, while I’ve stalked a parking lot before, never in my life have I actually stalked a garage. And while it might seem a bit odd to all of my fellow stalkers out there that I would even want to stalk a parking structure in the first place, my reason for doing so was two-fold. First, the garage was a fairly prominent location in Twins and quite a few segments were filmed there, but more importantly it was where all of my man David Caruso’s scenes were filmed, and because the actor has got to be THE nicest celebrity that I’ve ever met in my entire life, I was dying to stalk the place where he filmed one of his very first movies. I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, who actually tracked the place down for fellow stalker Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, who had been searching for it for quite some time. So, thank you, Gary!

In Twins, Vincent Benedict (aka Danny DeVito) frequents the supposed airport parking garage where his buddy Al works in order to steal high end cars which he then subsequently sells on the black market. Towards the beginning of the movie, Vincent inadvertently makes off with a Cadillac carrying a very valuable stolen fuel injector prototype that he then decides to deliver to an industrialist in Houston who has offered to pay him $5,000,000 for it. The movie’s storyline takes off from there.

And I am very happy to report that the parking garage looks EXACTLY the same today as it did 22 years ago when Twins was filmed. I guess if I were to think about it, though, how much could a parking garage really change over the years, even in more than two decades time, but I was still pleasantly surprised and grateful, nonetheless.

The guard shack is the only part of the structure that has been altered since filming took place back in 1988. At the time of the filming, it was located outside of the garage, but it has since been moved a few feet backwards.

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Big THANK YOU to Gary, from Seeing Stars, for finding this location and to fellow stalker Chas from ItsFilmedThere who asked for his help in doing so! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The parking garage from Twins is located at 127 Burchett Street, off of North Brand Boulevard in between Goode and Arden Avenues, in Glendale. The area used in the movie is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view.

August 21, 2009August 21, 2009

The “Twins” Mansion

Another day, another Twins location. 🙂 Unbelievably, before writing my post about the Twins house yesterday, I had yet to actually see the movie. For some reason, even though we own a copy of it on DVD, I had never sat down to watch it. Until yesterday, that is. But, as often happens to me when watching a movie for the first time, I got more absorbed in the locations and behind-the-scenes information than the actual storyline. I kept having to pause the movie to run to my computer to look things up. LOL One of the locales that I became a bit obsessed with finding yesterday was the mansion belonging to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father in the movie. Ironically enough, while doing some cyberstalking of the home, I came across this post on fave website ’80s Movie Rewind and was SHOCKED to see the location of the house listed with a special thanks to none other than my good friend Mike, from MovieShotsLA. LOL LOL LOL It’s such a small stalking world, isn’t it?? Granted, I’m sure Mike had told me the address of the Twins mansion before, but when the two of us get to talking about locations I get so excited that half of what he says doesn’t even register. I’ll ask him about a movie locale months later and he’ll say “I ALREADY told you where that was!” LOL Needless to say, the Twins mansion address is one of the bits of information that, for whatever reason, my brain didn’t store.

Anyway, as soon as I had the address yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the house. And I am very happy to report that – over TWO DECADES later – the Twins mansion looks pretty much EXACTLY the same today as it did when the movie was filmed! I mean, even the paint color is still the same! LOVE IT! In fact, the only differences I noticed were some very minor changes in foliage. Movie location owners really need to take lessons from the people that live in this house! LOL

The Twins mansion shows up very briefly in the scene when Arnold is out looking for infomation about his mother who passed away in childbirth. He winds up at this home and ends up meeting his father for the very first time. A scene takes place in the front yard of the house and then, later, in the father’s study. And, from how it looked in the movie, I believe a real room inside the house was used as the study.

The Twins mansion, which in real life is known as the A.L. Garford House, was built in 1916 by the prominent Pasadena architectural firm of Marston & Van Pelt. Sylvanus Marston built over 1,000 residences in the Pasadena area throughout his twenty-two year career, including America’s first ever bungalow motor court apartment complex, and has even been called “Pasadena’s Quintessential Architect”. Marston built homes and buildings in an eclectic array of styles ranging from English Tudor to Imperial Chinese. The Garford House was actually one of the first Pasadena area homes to be built in the elaborate Churrigueresque, or Spanish Baroque, style, and, according to this article, was the first ever Spanish style home to have a painted stucco exterior. It truly is a very beautiful and absolutely ginormous home!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito’s father’s house from Twins, aka the A.L. Garford House, is located at 1126 Hillcrest Avenue, on the Northeast corner of Hillcrest Avenue and South Oak Knoll Avenue, in Pasadena.

August 20, 2009August 20, 2009

The “Twins” House

A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Owen asked for my help in locating Danny DeVito’s Mediteranean style home from the 1988 comedy Twins. Owen had already done quite a bit of stalking legwork on this one and had managed to contact one of the movie’s crew members who told him that the house was located on a numbered street near Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Unfortunately, though, due to the fact that many of the numbered streets in Santa Monica aren’t featured in Google Maps Street View, Owen was not able to cyberstalk the home. Which is where I came in. 🙂 Because I am in the Santa Monica area quite frequently, I offered to drive around the numbered streets to see if I could locate the elusive Twins house. From watching the movie, Owen knew that the home had an address number of 323 and that the neighboring house was numbered 327, which narrowed down our search parameters quite a bit. So, a few weeks ago, with a screen capture of the house and those few bits of information in hand, I dragged my fiance out to find the Twins house. And find it, we did! 🙂

Amazingly enough, the house was actually located on the very first street we drove down. When I realized we had found it, I turned to my fiance in shock and said “Could it really have been this easy?” LOL Sadly, though, the Twins house looks MUCH different today than it did back in 1988 when the movie was filmed. While still recognizable, it looks as if quite a bit of remodeling has been done to it in recent years. I guess I really shouldn’t be all that surprised that the house has changed so significantly, though, after all the movie was filmed more than two decades ago!

Besides adding on a whole second story, the homeowners also removed the enclosed front porch area and popped out the home’s entry way and front door by a good couple of feet, as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture. A large tree which covers the front window has also since been planted.

But the most significant – and odd – change to the house has to be the complete removal of the driveway. Owen and I have actually been over the driveway removal issue ad nauseam and still can’t figure out the reasoning behind it. I mean WHY ON EARTH WOULD SOMEONE REMOVE THEIR DRIVEWAY? LOL It’s absolutely BIZARRE! My fiance brought up the point, though, that it’s quite possible the city refused to grant the homeowner’s remodeling permits unless they agreed to do away with their driveway. Santa Monica is known as something of an “alley city” – numerous homes in the area don’t have driveways and the garages are reached via a back alley – so it’s actually a pretty good possibility that my fiance hit the nail on the head about why that driveway is no longer there.

Ironically enough, the neighboring house, which shows up briefly in Twins, still looks EXACTLY the same as it did when the movie was filmed.

Even though the Twins house looks quite different today, it was still extremely exciting to be stalking it. And a little bit of movie trivia for you – a very young Heather Graham had a brief, uncredited role in Twins as Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mom. David Caruso also had a small role in the movie as parking attendant Al Greco. His voice is so different in the flick, though, that I literally almost didn’t recognize him!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Danny DeVito’s house from Twins is located at 323 11th Street in Santa Monica.