That Thing You Stalk!

That Thing You Do has always been one of my very favorite movies. Liv Tyler could not have been more adorable in that movie! The scene where she is running down the street screaming with joy while listening to the Oneders song on the radio for the first time is one of my favorite scenes in all of moviedom! And I do love me some Tom Everett Scott, too. 🙂 So when I read on Pasadena’s Filming Website that a house on Prospect Boulevard in Pasadena was used in That Thing You Do, I, of course, ran right out to stalk it.

I must say that working backwards, or stalking backwards I should say, ie. trying to find the scene in a movie where a certain home or place was featured, proved to be almost as difficult as normal stalking. I had to fast-forward through That Thing You Do twice before I spotted the house in a scene. In actuality only the garage of the home was used, and it was only used briefly in the very beginning of the movie. The home was featured in the scene when Guy Patterson practices with the rest of the band for the first time. It is in this scene that Liv Tyler comes up with the name for the band – “The Oneders”.

I actually had to go back and stalk this house a second time, as the first time I stalked it I didn’t get a photo of the garage, which was the only part of the house used in the movie. The front of the home is never actually shown. The clapboard-style residence is super cute in person and was very reminiscent of the Father of the Bride house, but on a slightly smaller scale. I am actually very surprised the front of the house was not shown in the movie. You’d think that since they were already there filming in the garage, they would have taken some stock footage of the front of the house to use in the movie.

The Prospect Historic District of Pasadena, where the That Thing You Do home is located, is a beautiful neighborhood with absolutely gorgeous homes on tree covered streets. The neighborhood, which was started in the year 1906, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. One of the homes on Prospect, number 657, is known as the Bentz House and was built by the famous architects Greene & Greene, with whom Craftsman style architecture is most commonly associated. Greene & Greene built the Bentz House in 1906 and it still stands today. Jennifer Lopez’ dream house from the movie Enough can also be found in the Prospect Historic District. It is pictured to the left. According to Pasadena’s Filming Website the Enough house was also used in That Thing You Do, but I never saw it. Quite possibly only the interior of the house was used, and therefore I didn’t recognize it, or, also quite possible, the Pasadena website just got it wrong.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The That Thing You Do house is located at 490 Prospect Boulevard. The garage that was used in the movie is to the left rear of the house and is very visible from the street. JLo’s house from Enough is located right around the corner at 445 Prospect Square. The most famous Greene & Greene home, the Gamble House, is located just off of Prospect Square at 4 Westmoreland Place. The Gamble House was used as Doc Brown’s home in the movie Back to the Future, but I’ll save that one for a future post. 🙂

4 Replies to “That Thing You Stalk!”

  1. Hey girl! Im a big fan of ‘That Thing You Do’ as well. Be sure to get over to the City of Orange sometime so you can see the storefront from the movie, as well as the soda fountain shop. Its a MUST SEE. This area was also used in the movie ‘First daughter’ with Katie Holmes and Ive seen it used in other movies as well. Def. worth a day trip.

    The house from ‘Enough’ was gorgeous!!! Part of that movie was filmed up here in Washington State.

    As always, thanks for the pics and info,

    Kerry:)

  2. Interestingly, in the 1930s Elizabeth Reeve Morgan lived at 850 Prospect, just a few blocks away. She was the (mentally unstable) sister of the wife of Charles Lindberg, moved from the east coast after the Lindberg baby murder and lived here. Widely considered by police and the family as a strong – and the most likely since she was in the house with the child and was known to have little patience for him – suspect in the perhaps accidental murder of the child, she lived here pretty my anonymously until she died in the 1940’s. Whoever killed the child, Lindberg and his wife clearly knew that Bruno Haupmann did not kill their child but still let him die in the electric chair. Clearly two slimey and scumbaggy people. They knew he didn’t do it.

Leave a Reply to Kerry Cancel reply