movie sites – Page 4 – IAMNOTASTALKER

November 22, 2011November 21, 2011

The Skyline Residence – Jacob’s House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

Back in August, I received an email from a fellow stalker named Brandon who wanted to let me know that he had tracked down the ultra-modern abode where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) lived in Crazy, Stupid, Love. At the time I had yet to see the movie, but added the address to my To-Stalk list anyway and am so glad that I did because, as I have mentioned more than a few times before in recent posts, I have since become just a wee bit obsessed with the flick . . . and its cutie leading man. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Hollywood Hills to stalk the place this past Saturday afternoon.

Due to a slight snafu with my GPS, though, I was unable to get to the actual house and could only snap a few pictures of it from afar. While I always research locations to make sure that they are accessible to the public before leaving to stalk them and while Jacob’s house was visible on Google Street View, for some reason, my navigational system just could not seem to get me there.

It was not until I returned home that evening that I was able to figure out why. As you can see in the above aerial view, Skyline Drive, where Jacob’s house is located, dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later. My GPS, thinking Skyline Drive was a through-street, directed me to the wrong end of it, where the abode was nowhere to be found.

So the next morning, paper map in hand, I dragged the GC back on out to the Hollywood Hills to re-stalk the property. As you can see above, it was POURING rain at the time, which I was none too happy about. You see, there is nothing in this world that this stalker hates more than rain, except for maybe Kyle Richards. Winking smile But once I remembered that it was also raining in the scene in Crazy, Stupid, Love. that took place at Jacob’s house, me being there during a downpour seemed quite apropos. The GC could not stop laughing at me posing for the above picture, though, as he said that I looked as if I was dressed for “the tundra”. Hmph! I happen to like my rain coat, thankyouverymuch!

In real life, Jacob’s house is known as the Skyline Residence and it was built in 2007 by Hagy Belzberg, of Belzberg Architects, to be used as his private residence. According to this fabulous Architectural Record blog post, several previous owners had tried to build a home on the narrow plot of land on which the Skyline Residence now stands, but had not had any luck in securing permits. Belzberg said, “I decided that instead of trying to fight the topography I would work with it and create a very narrow building that sits lightly on the land with minimal to no grading.” The architect’s design called for a 20- by 120-foot structure made out of concrete, glass, marble, and wood.

As you can see above, the finished product is nothing short of magnificent! As Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, would say, it is “amazeballs”! Love it, love it, love it! The property is pretty much my dream abode.

From the view pictured above, which I got off of the home’s former real estate website, the dwelling is extremely reminiscent of the Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, which I blogged about way back in March of 2009. The Skyline Residence, which according to fave website CurbedLA was sold to new owners for a cool $5.995 million on December 21, 2009, boasts 4 bedrooms, 5 baths, a 1-bedroom, 1-bath detached guest house, a 65-foot long infinity pool, a spa, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, a large, open kitchen and dining area, outdoor terraces, sweeping views, and a whopping 5,200 square feet of living space!

My favorite aspect of the house, though, has to be the outdoor movie deck, which sits atop the garage and in which films are projected onto a wall of the detached guest house. How amazing is that???? A girl I was friends with in high school had an actual full-sized movie theatre located inside of her home and at the time I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever, but I can honestly say that this pretty much blows that right out of the water! I mean have you ever seen anything more incredible??? You can check out some more fabulous interior and exterior photographs of the Skyline Residence on The Contemporist website here.

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Jacob’s house only shows up briefly in Crazy, Stupid, Love. in one of the best scenes of the movie in which Jacob brings Hannah (aka Emma Stone) home and tries to seduce her by showing her his “big move”. Of the property, the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes state, “Jacob’s home also reflected his current lifestyle. To serve as his stunning, if stark, bachelor pad, the filmmakers chose the renowned Skyline Residence designed by internationally recognized architect Hagy Belzberg. Located off the Sunset Strip in the Hollywood Hills, the glass-enclosed, ultra-modern home is considered a prime example of world-class contemporary architecture. As no one was residing in the home at the time, it was easy for [production designer William] Arnold and his team to make the few necessary adjustments. ‘We just removed what we didn’t need, and put in a few of our own signature furnishings, leaving it somewhat austere,’ he says. ‘Jacob’s house is a comment on the character’s own emptiness, really. He rattles around in there; it’s very impersonal, yet very tasteful.’”

The main area of the property used in the film was the living room and it appears as if the home’s hanging Fireorb fireplace was removed for the shoot, which was a good call as I personally think the space looks much better without it.

The kitchen area also made a very brief appearance during the montage scene towards the end of the movie.

A photograph of that kitchen is pictured above.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brandon for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Skyline Residence, aka Jacob’s house from Crazy, Stupid, Love., is located at 8520 Skyline Drive in the Hollywood Hills. A great view of the property can be seen from Crest View Drive, just south of where it meets Skyline Drive. As I mentioned previously, Skyline Drive dead-ends at a certain point and then picks up again a short distance later. Because of that, my GPS took me to the wrong location when I inputted the address “8520 Skyline Drive”. If you have the same problem, I would suggest inputting the intersection of Skyline Drive and Greenvalley Road into your navigational system and then following Skyline Drive west until it dead-ends. Jacob’s residence is the last house on the east side of the street.

November 11, 2011October 23, 2011

The Weaver House from “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

Back in August, on the recommendation of my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, from the Thinking Pink blog, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see Crazy, Stupid, Love. and I can honestly say that it was one of the best movies I have seen all year. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that it was one of the best movies I have seen ever! And while I have long thought that Ryan Gosling is one of the most gifted actors of our generation, he entered a whole new level in Crazy, Stupid, Love. and blew all of his past performances right out of the water! The guy is simply phenomenal! And can you say “heartthrob”?! I also absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE me some Emma Stone and she, too, was nothing short of fabulous. If you have yet to see the movie, I cannot more highly recommend doing so! Like now! Stop reading this post, in fact, and go right out and rent it! Seriously! Anyway, because I loved the flick so much, I could absolutely NOT wait for it to come out on DVD – which it finally did last week – so that I could start tracking down some of its locations. And one of the first that I found, thanks to a very helpful crew member, was the residence where the Weaver family lived. So I ran right out to stalk it – Grim Cheaper in tow, of course – just a few days later.

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In Crazy, Stupid, Love., recently-separated Emily Weaver (aka Julianne Moore) and her two children, Robbie (aka Jonah Bobo) and Molly (aka Joey King), live in the two-story Anywhere, U.S.A.-style house pictured above.

The backyard was the area of the property that actually appeared most often in the flick, most notably during Cal Weaver’s (aka Steve Carell’s) late-night gardening sessions. According to the Crazy, Stupid, Love. production notes, of the residence, production designer William Arnold said, “We were really lucky to find that house, which had this beautiful back sun porch. The owners graciously let us tear down their old glass doors and put in windows and doors that opened the house up to the backyard, lending itself to Cal’s late-night ‘visits’ to his garden. He could see almost all the way through the house, but was, tellingly, on the outside looking in.”

The backyard also appeared in my very favorite scene from the movie, in which Cal’s surprise for Emily goes a bit haywire. I will not say anymore than that, as I do not want to spoil the scene for those who have yet to see the movie – and if that is the case, then you really should not be reading this post! You should be out renting Crazy, Stupid, Love. like I told you to before! Winking smile

The real life interior of the house was also used in the flick. Amazingly, according to the production notes, almost all of Crazy, Stupid, Love. was filmed on location at actual sites. Only two sets were constructed for use in the movie – Cal’s post-separation apartment and Plus, the bar where Jacob Palmer (aka Ryan Gosling) taught Cal the finer points of seducing women – which I found shocking!

In real life, the 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 2,270-square-foot home, which was originally built in 1949 and sits on over half an acre of land, looks much the same in person as it did onscreen, except for the cement front walkway, which appears to have been swapped out for a stone one during the filming.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Weaver residence from Crazy, Stupid, Love. is located at 2002 Minoru Drive in Altadena.

November 10, 2011October 18, 2011

Dolly Green’s House from “Eye for an Eye”

Taking a break today from my many Gossip Girl posts, I thought I would write about a residence that I stalked with fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, way back in mid-July. While he was in town for a little Southern California stalking vacay, the two of us, along with his super-sweet mother, Cynthia, headed out to the Los Feliz area to visit the tiny Tudor-style bungalow where Dolly Green (aka Beverly D’Angelo, who will always be “Ellen Griswold” to me) and her husband, Peter (aka Darrell Larson), lived in the 1996 revenge thriller Eye for an Eye. Chas had somehow managed to track down the property – despite only a small portion of it ever being shown – as well as all of the other locations featured in the movie, a little over a year ago. And while I actually could not even remember what Dolly Green’s abode looked like before we arrived there, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place on site!

Dolly Green’s little fairy-tale-like dwelling, which was built over the side of a cascading cliff on the winding Glendower Avenue high up in the hills of Los Feliz, is absolutely ADORABLE in person. The abode is so quaint and charming that it looks as if it jumped right out of a Disney cartoon. I half expected the Seven Dwarfs to come walking out the front door, marching along to “Whistle While You Work”, while we were there.

Although calling the home “little” is a bit misleading. While it does appear to be small from the street, the residence is actually quite large. According to fave website Zillow, the dwelling, which was originally built in 1926, boasts 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and measures 2,972 square feet. As you can see above, though, most of that square footage is located on the back side of the hill, below street level and out of view.

And speaking of views, the home boasts some incredible ones! We happened to stalk the residence on a smog-free day and were able to see all the way to Downtown Los Angeles! Amazing!

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Dolly Green’s residence only appears in one brief scene in Eye for an Eye, in which Karen McCann (aka Sally Field) and her husband, Mack (aka Ed Harris), spend the night at their friends’ house immediately following the murder of their teenage daughter, Julie (aka Olivia Burnette). Now that I have seen the property in person, I am shocked that only a small portion of it was shown in the movie. I mean, talk about curb appeal! This place has got it in spades! Why more of it was not featured is beyond me. But then again, I am not a filmmaker, so what do I know? Winking smile

Sadly, I was not able to find any photographs of the actual interior of the residence, so I am not able to say whether or not it was used in Eye for an Eye, but I would guess that it was.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ extensive Eye for an Eye filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Dolly Green’s house from Eye for an Eye is located at 2757 Glendower Avenue in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. Quite a few other filming locations can be found nearby – the Doppelganger mansion is at 2421 Glendower Avenue; Donna Martin’s house from the B.Y.O.B. episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 is at 2405 Glendower Avenue; the so-called “Los Feliz Murder House” is at 2475 Glendower Place, and the legendary Ennis-Brown house, which I have yet to stalk, is at 2607 Glendower Avenue.

October 28, 2011September 29, 2017

The Sierra Bonita Apartments from “Mulholland Dr.”

Another Haunted-Hollywood-type location that I found thanks to fellow stalker/David Lynch aficionado Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, was the fictionally-named “Sierra Bonita” apartment complex – the fairy-tale-style property that was featured in one of the more intense and terrifying scenes from the surrealist director’s incredibly odd 2001 thriller Mulholland Dr. Brad had posted a brief write-up of the unique Silverlake-area site just last week and, because I had stalked and blogged about Le Borghese, the other apartment building featured in the flick, way back in February of 2009, I immediately added the place to my “To-Stalk” list and dragged the Grim Cheaper out there to see it just a few days later.

The complex, which consists of eight small, wood-shingled bungalows built around a central courtyard, was originally designed by Ben Sherwood in 1931. Ironically enough, as you can see above, in real life there is nothing whatsoever spooky or macabre about the location. On the contrary, the bungalow court is actually quite charming and idyllic in person and seems far more Disney-esque than “Lynchian”, as David Lynch’s movies have come to be described.

Legend has it, in fact, that the bungalows were once occupied by Walt Disney Studios animators and that the storybook-like architecture served as the inspiration for the Seven Dwarf’s cottage in the very first full-length animated feature film, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. According to the “Ask Chris” column which appeared in the December 2006 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, Walt Disney Archive founder Dave Smith confirmed that director Hamilton Luske and animators Dick Lundy, Lee Morehouse, and Fred Moore all did occupy the complex once upon a time, which makes sense being that the original Walt Disney Studios was located a stone’s throw away on Hyperion Boulevard, where Gelson’s Market now stands. Because the apartments do bear a strong resemblance to the Seven Dwarf’s cottage, Chris suggests that the animators “might have taken their home to work with them”. Winking smile Thanks to the Snow White lore, the bungalows have come to be known as the “Snow White Cottages” or the “Disney Cottages”, although they have no official name.

The fact that David Lynch even thought to transform such a picturesque spot into a place so sinister and foreboding – solely using camera angles, a few set pieces, and some carefully timed bars of music, mind you – speaks volumes about the director’s massive creative genius. He also somehow managed to make the property look huge on film, when, in reality, it is incredibly small and sits on a plot of land that measures less than two-tenths of an acre.

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In Mulholland Dr., the Sierra Bonita Apartments are where budding actress Betty Elms (aka Naomi Watts) and her amnesiac new friend Rita (aka Laura Harring) search for a mysterious stranger named Diane Selwyn. When Betty and Rita first arrive at Sierra Bonita, their taxi drives past the front of the complex, down a side alley located just north of the complex, and then drops them off in the rear of the property where the carports are located.

The carport area is pictured above and, as you can see, even it is picturesque! I can honestly say that was the first time in history I have ever seen a cute carport!

Betty and Rita then walk through the Disney-esque tower located at the back of the complex. A fake wall and apartment directory were set up in that area for the filming, which blocked the rest of the property from view.

That tower is pictured above.

According to the directory, Diane Selwyn lives in Apartment Number 12 in the complex’s West Courtyard. In reality, though, the property only has one courtyard.

Betty and Rita then make their way along meandering pathways and through maze-like foliage to Apartment 12. It was here that David Lynch employed tricky camera work and the magic of Hollywood to make the complex appear to be much larger than it actually is. To borrow a phrase from the British, I was absolutely gobsmacked when I arrived at the property and saw how miniscule it was.

Lynch also had a fake wall and gate installed at the front of the property, along Griffith Park Boulevard, which you can see in the background of the above screen capture.

The fake gate was built behind the complex’s real life gate, which can also be seen in the movie.

When Betty knocks on the door to Apartment 12, she is told that Diane Selwyn has recently moved into Apartment 17.

The bungalow used as Apartment 12 is actually numbered 2912 1/2 in real life and is the complex’s northwestern-most unit. It is located right on Griffith Park Boulevard and can be easily viewed from the street.

When Betty and Rita arrive at Apartment 17, they discover that no one is home and wind up breaking into the unit through a side window.

In real life, Apartment 17 is the bungalow numbered 2910 and it is located at the northeastern-most edge of the complex.

The window that Betty breaks into is pictured above.

I am fairly certain that the interior that was shown in the movie was just a set as the spacing of the windows in the kitchen area does not match up to the spacing of the windows on the exterior of the actual bungalow. You can check out some photographs of one of the actual apartment interiors on fave website CurbedLA here.

In the Season 2 episode of My Name Is Earl titled “Sticks & Stones”, the “Snow White Cottages” were used extensively as “Shady Grove”, where Maggie Lester, aka The Bearded Lady (aka Judy Greer), and her carnival friends lived.

Maggie lived in the bungalow numbered 2906 1/2 in the episode.

That bungalow is pictured above.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the unit was also used in the filming. How incredibly cute is Maggie’s place, by the way?!?! Oh, what I wouldn’t give to live there!

On a Mulholland Dr. side-note – Justin Theroux, my girl Jen Aniston’s current boyfriend, played the lead role of director Adam Kesher in the film.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The “Sierra Bonita Apartments” from Mulholland Dr. are located at 2900 Griffith Park Boulevard in Silverlake. The units which were used in Mulholland Dr. are denoted with pink arrows in the above aerial view – Apartment #12 is actually the bungalow numbered 2912 1/2 and Apartment #17 is the bungalow numbered 2910. Maggie’s apartment from My Name Is Earl is denoted with a blue arrow in the above aerial view and is numbered 2906 1/2 in real life.

October 24, 2011September 29, 2017

Villa Primavera – The “In a Lonely Place” Apartment Building

While doing research on the Double Indemnity house, which I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, I came across some information about Villa Primavera – a courtyard-style apartment building that was featured in the 1950 film noir classic In a Lonely Place. I immediately became intrigued with the West-Hollywood-area building due to an anecdote that was listed on the movie’s IMDB trivia page. Apparently, In a Lonely Place director Nicholas Ray had lived at Villa Primavera upon first moving to Southern California in the 1940s and was so enamored with the place that he decided to build a replica of the entire complex, courtyard and all, on a soundstage at Columbia Studios (now Sunset-Gower Studios) in Hollywood to be used as Humphrey Bogart’s bachelor pad in the flick. At some point during the shoot, Nicholas walked in on his wife, Gloria Grahame, who also starred in the movie, in bed with his 13-year-old son from a previous marriage. Nicholas immediately moved out of the home he shared with Gloria and into the Villa Primavera apartment set, where he ended up living – in what was essentially an exact replica of his former apartment – until filming wrapped. Because the building was so inextricably linked with both In a Lonely Place and the behind-the-scenes turmoil that marked the shoot, I was absolutely dying to see the place in person and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to do just that a few days later.

Villa Primavera was constructed by legendary husband and wife architecture team Arthur and Nina Zwebell in 1923 and was the couple’s very first Spanish-Revival-style building. The charming complex features red-tile roofs, white adobe walls, and a central courtyard with a large tiled fountain, an outdoor fireplace, lush foliage, and wandering brick pathways. The individual apartment units boast corner fireplaces, exposed wood ceilings, and tile floors. The Zwebells loved the design so much that they eventually moved into the Hacienda-like property for a time and legend has it that James Dean and Katharine Hepburn also once called the place home. Sadly though, as you can see above, the ten-unit complex is gated and not much of it can be viewed from the street.

I did manage to catch a brief glimpse of the interior courtyard and central fountain through the front gate, though, and they both looked absolutely beautiful.

Amazingly enough, when the GC and I first arrived at Villa Primavera, this little guy ran up to greet us.

And I just about died when I realized that he was a polydactyl cat, aka a “Hemingway cat”, aka a cat with more than five toes on one or more of its paws! I had watched a television special on the unusual felines a little over ten years ago and have been absolutely obsessed with them ever since. I cannot tell you how incredibly fitting it was that we ran into a so-called “Hemingway cat” while visiting an apartment building with such a storied Old Hollywood history! Love it!

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In In a Lonely Place, Villa Primavera stood in for the supposed-Beverly-Hills-area “Beverly Patio” apartments where frustrated Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (aka Humphrey Bogart) and his beautiful new neighbor, Laurel Gray (aka Gloria Grahame), lived.

The location was such an integral part of the murder mystery – which was fabulous by the way – that it led Roger Ebert to write in an August 13th, 2009 review, “The courtyard of the Hollywood building occupied by Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place is one of the most evocative spaces I’ve seen in a movie. Small apartments are lined up around a Spanish-style courtyard with a fountain. Each flat is occupied by a single person. If you look across from your window, you can see into the life of your neighbor.” It is thanks to that interior view of neighboring units that Laurel is able to provide an alibi for Dixon after he is accused of murdering a young woman whom he had been seen with the night before. And while the courtyard area that is pictured above;

and the interior of both Dixon and Laurel’s individual apartments were recreations built at Columbia Studios, some actual filming did take place on location at Villa Primavera.

In the beginning of In a Lonely Place, Dixon returns home from the Beverly Hills police station after being questioned about the murdered woman and walks across the lawn of the real life apartment building. As you can see, a fake sign reading “Beverly Patio Apartments” was installed for that scene.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Villa Primavera, the In a Lonely Place apartment building, is located at 1300-1308 North Harper Avenue in West Hollywood.

October 20, 2011September 29, 2017

Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery from “Twin Peaks”

As I mentioned in my post last month about The Old Place restaurant, thanks to fellow stalker/David-Lynch-aficionado Brad, from the Brad D Studios website, I recently discovered that fave television series Twin Peaks was shot almost in its entirety in Southern California. Because I have long been a Twin Peaks fanatic, I was beyond eager to start stalking the many locations mentioned on Brad’s blog – the most exciting of which was Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, the site of the funeral of Laura Palmer (aka Sheryl Lee) in the Season 1 episode titled “Rest in Pain”. Surprisingly, even though Sierra Madre is located just a few miles east of Pasadena and even though the cemetery has been featured in several spooky productions over the years, until perusing through Brad’s site in early September, I had never before even heard of it! So, because the place fit in perfectly with my Haunted Hollywood theme, I waited to drag the Grim Cheaper out there until this past weekend.

Pioneer Cemetery was originally established in 1881 by Sierra Madre’s founding father, Nathanial Coburn Carter, who, that same year, purchased a 1,103-acre plot of land from Santa-Anita-Park-racetrack-founder Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin. Carter set aside 2.32 of those 1,103 acres to build a cemetery and the first burial, of one of Carter’s servants, took place just a year later in 1882. Today, Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery is the final resting place of over 1,700 souls, including Carter and his family, as well as numerous veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

I cannot tell you how absolutely amazing it was to wander the grounds of the place and see tombstones dating all the way back to the 1880s, some so old that the inscriptions had simply worn off. And while I realize that “charming” might be an odd word to describe a graveyard, that is exactly what Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery is. It is an extremely small and quiet space, with cherry blossom, sycamore, oak, and palm trees dotting the landscape, as well as several stone benches on which one can sit and reflect.

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In the “Rest in Pain” episode of Twin Peaks, Laura Palmer’s friends and family gather at Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery to lay the slain teenager to rest. This being Twin Peaks, weirdness, of course, ensues – one of the mourners has a Tourette’s moment and starts screaming out “Amen”, Laura’s father, Leland Palmer (aka Ray Wise), jumps on her coffin as it is being lowered into the ground, and a fist-fight even breaks out. Yes, at a funeral!

Laura Palmer’s funeral was held in the northwest section of Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, in the area denoted with a pink “X” above.

Her funeral location is pictured above.

The crooked tombstone that was visible in the background of the scene is, I am fairly certain, the same tombstone that is circled in the above photograph. In real life, it reads “Fannie J. Garey”.

The tree in front of which James Hurley (aka James Marshall) stood during the funeral is located just east of Laura’s burial site.

In real life, James’ tree is located behind a large gravestone that reads “Gibson P. Kelly” and next to a gravestone that reads “Zola M. Croman”.

A view of tree from the funeral site is pictured above.

And I, of course, just had to pose like James while there. That’s my brooding face above. Winking smile

Amazingly, Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, 1976’s Family Plot, in the scene in which George Lumley (aka Bruce Dern) heads to the supposed “Barlow Creek Cemetery” to look for a missing person whom he has been hired to find. According to a fabulous Sierra Madre Patch article, before filming began, production designer Henry Bumstead, who was a San Marino resident and often used nearby locations in his movies, had the Pioneer caretakers cease weeding the property so that it would appear to be unkempt and dilapidated. The shoot also happened to take place on two particularly gloomy L.A. days, which only added to the macabre atmosphere. And cinematographer Leonard South lit the set without using any artificial lighting to further add to the dismal effect.

The caretaker’s shack which appeared in the scene has since been replaced with a more modern-looking structure.

Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery also shows up once again towards the end of Family Plot, in the scene in which Joseph P. Maloney (aka Ed Lauter) is buried.

For that scene, Hitch brought in a thirty-foot scaffold so that he could shoot the chase sequence between George and Mrs. Maloney (aka Katherine Helmond) from above.

And Mike, from MovieShotsLA, let me know that Pioneer Cemetery was also used in the 1978 horror flick Halloween, in the scene in which Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist, Sam Loomis (aka Donald Pleasence), discovers that Judith Meyer’s headstone, which is supposed to be located in Row 18, Plot 20, is missing. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Strode residence, Halloween director John Carpenter is a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan, so I do not believe it was a coincidence that he chose to film a scene at the very same cemetery where the Master of Suspense once filmed.

In the Halloween scene, Dr. Loomis enters the graveyard and parks his car near what is actually Pioneer Cemetery’s exit, on the southeastern side of the property. Amazingly enough, that area still looks almost exactly the same today as it did back in 1978 when the movie was filmed, minus a large tree, which as you can see above, has since been removed.

But the three tombstones that Dr. Loomis parked next to still look exactly the same as they did three decades ago.

The area where Judith Meyers’ headstone was located is directly behind James’ tree from Twin Peaks and in front of a large tombstone which reads “Sinclair”.

Ironically enough, the back of the Sinclair tombstone can be seen behind James during Laura Palmer’s funeral scene.

On a Twin Peaks side note – I had the amazing good fortune to run into Special Agent Dale Cooper himself, Kyle MacLachlan, at the Emmy Awards last month. Kyle could NOT have been nicer and not only agreed to pose for a picture, but also chatted briefly with me about Twin Peaks and how much he loved being a part of it. For this stalker, who had answered “Special Agent Dale Cooper” when asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as an Eighth Grade yearbook quote, this was a particularly special moment.

Big THANK YOU to Brad, from Brad D Studios, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery, from the “Rest in Pain” episode of Twin Peaks, is located at 553 East Sierra Madre Boulevard in Sierra Madre. Laura Palmer’s funeral was held in the area marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view. James Hurley’s tree is located behind a large gravestone which reads “Gibson P. Kelly” and directly next to a gravestone which reads “Zola M. Croman”. In Halloween, Dr. Loomis and the caretaker enter the cemetery in the area marked with a blue arrow above. The spot where Dr. Loomis parks his car is denoted with a blue oval and Judith Meyer’s gravesite is located just west of a large headstone that is marked “Sinclair”.

October 19, 2011September 29, 2017

Laurie Strode’s House from “Halloween”

A couple of months ago, fellow stalker Mikey, from the Mike the Fanboy website, clued me into an INCREDIBLY cool little bit of Haunted Hollywood stalking information that I had not been previously aware of. Apparently, the real life owners of the home that stood in for the Strode residence in the 1978 classic horror film Halloween are so extremely stalker-friendly that they provide a supply of plastic pumpkins on their front porch all year long for fans of the movie to pose with in photographs. Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over with excitement upon hearing this news and decided that, even though I had previously stalked the Strode house and blogged about it briefly way back in October of 2008, that it was most-definitely worthy of a re-visit. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to South Pasadena to do just that this past weekend.

And, sure enough, as soon as we arrived at the home, I spotted an assortment of plastic foam pumpkins sitting on a chair on the property’s front porch, along with a framed sign.

That sign reads, “Yes this is the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis from the 1978 Halloween. You may borrow the pumpkin. Have a good time.”

The sign also includes a still from the movie so that fans can refer to it while posing on the front walkway. How incredibly cool are these homeowners??? Big, huge, Andre-the-Giant-sized props go out to them for embracing the cinematic history of their residence and allowing stalkers to share in some of the fun. If I owned a famous movie home, you can bet your bottom dollar that I would be doing this same, exact thing. LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

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The supposed-Haddonfield, Illinois Strode residence was featured several times in Halloween. It first appeared in the beginning of the movie in the scene in which Laurie Strode (aka Jamie Lee Curtis) is reminded by her father, Morgan Strode (aka Peter Griffith), to drop a key off at the “Meyer’s place”. According to the fabulous website The Cabinet, that particular scene was the very first of the entire movie to be shot. And according to IMDB’s Halloween trivia page, director John Carpenter hired Jamie Lee Curtis, in what was her very first movie role, as a sort-of nod to Alfred Hitchcock who had cast Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh, in the iconic role of Marion Crane in Psycho. In another homage to the legendary Hitchcock classic, Carpenter also named the character of Michael Meyer’s psychiatrist “Sam Loomis” after Marion’s lover in Psycho.

The Strode residence next shows up in the scene in which Laurie returns home from school, after having been accidentally scared by Sherriff Leigh Bracken (aka Charles Cyphers).

And finally, it appears in the scene in which Laurie waits, pumpkin in hand, to be picked up by her friend Annie Brackett (aka Nancy Kyes) to go baby-sitting.

It is that scene that the homeowners allow you to recreate with their fake pumpkins. SO INCREDIBLY COOL!

Amazingly, the Strode residence looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did in 1978 when Halloween was filmed. The north-facing side of the house is the area that appeared in the movie.

For whatever reason, the east-facing side, which is pictured above, was not seen in Halloween. According to fave website Zillow, in real life the property is not a single-family home, but a multi-occupancy dwelling which features three separate units.

And while I cannot say for certain that the home’s actual interior was used in the filming, I am guessing that it was.

On a very random side-note – while doing some research on Halloween earlier today, I almost fell off my chair upon discovering that Kyle Richards (star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, whom I loathe more than there are words in the English language to express – I honestly do not think there has ever been a bigger b*tch in the history of reality television, but I digress) had played Lindsey Wallace, the little girl whom Annie babysat, in the 1978 flick.

And on a Halloween side-note – as the GC and I were driving away from the Strode residence, we spotted a house that was decorated beyond belief for the upcoming holiday!

As you can see above, the amount of detail that went into the embellishment of the home is utterly incredible!

I was shocked to discover that the fence which runs along the perimeter of the property and reads “cemetery” above the gate was actually just a prop! I mean, I, of course, realized the “cemetery” part was decoration, but the entire fence? WOW!

And it was not until I was about to leave that I realized the home’s brick façade was also just a decoration! As you can see in the above photograph, the entire front of the residence has been wrapped in some sort of plastic covering. Talk about going all out!!! If I ever have a house, you better believe that this is what it is going to look like every year come Halloween! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Laurie Strode’s house from the original Halloween movie is located at 1115 Oxley Street in South Pasadena. The massively-decorated-for-Halloween home that we stumbled upon is located right around the corner at 1130 Diamond Avenue in South Pasadena.

October 18, 2011September 29, 2017

The “Psycho” Car Dealership

While putting together a list of spooky-type locales to stalk during my Haunted Hollywood month a couple of weeks ago, I decided to peruse through fave book James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America’s Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting for a little inspiration. And, let me tell you, I just about died of excitement when I saw a blurb about the North-Hollywood-area car dealership that appeared in the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic Psycho. In the blurb, Epting mentioned that not only was the place still standing, but that it was also still a car dealership – over fifty years later! How incredibly cool is that?!? So because Psycho is arguably one of the most well-known and best-loved horror movies of all time, I decided that I just had to include the location in my Haunted Hollywood postings and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to the Valley to stalk it a few days later.

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In Psycho, Marion Crane (aka Jamie Lee Curtis’ mother, Janet Leigh), who is on the run from the police after having stolen $40,000 in cash from her boss in Arizona, stops by the supposed-Bakersfield-area “California Charlie’s Used Car Lot” in order to trade her car in for one with California plates. While there, her brusque, hurried attitude causes California Charlie (aka John Anderson) to say his famous line, “Well, it’s the first time the customer ever high-pressured the salesman.” At the time of the filming, the dealership was known as Harry Maher’s Used Car Lot and, because the Ford Motor Company was a sponsor of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Maher was required to swap out his real life inventory with a supply of Fords for the one-day shoot. Hitchcock was apparently such a perfectionist that, according to a fabulous article written on The Cabinet website, he sent assistant director Hilton A. Green all the way to Bakersfield to photograph real-life used car salesmen in order to see their clothing so that California Charlie’s costume would be realistic. He also commissioned Psycho screenwriter Joseph Stefano to observe car salesmen while writing the script so that Charlie’s dialogue would be legitimate. Talk about attention to detail!

Also according to The Cabinet article, the bathroom scene, in which Marion takes $700 out of her purse in order to pay for her new car, was not filmed on location at Harry Maher’s Used Car Lot, as the restroom there was too small to fit an entire camera crew. Hitch instead decided to shoot that brief scene at Universal Studios, on what I am assuming was just a set that was built on a soundstage.

Today, Harry Maher’s Used Car Lot is home to MINI of Universal City and it, sadly, does not look much like it did in 1960 when Psycho was filmed.

Because the lot has changed so considerably over the years, it was hard to discern the exact spot where filming took place. But if I had to venture a guess, I would say that the California Charlie’s scene was shot in the area denoted with a pink rectangle in the above aerial view. And I am fairly certain that the building denoted with a blue arrow was not in existence at the time that Psycho was filmed.

It is my guess that the screen capture and photograph pictured above show the same exact area of the lot. I believe that the California Charlie’s sales office is now the MINI dealership’s service office . . .

. . . and that the door shown in the screen capture above is in pretty much the same location as the door denoted with a pink arrow in the photograph.

I am also fairly certain that the MINI showroom was built in the portion of the lot that Marion walked through in Psycho . . .

. . . and that the above images show the exact same view, albeit 50 years apart. Even though the property has changed so drastically in the five-plus decades since the filming of Psycho took place, I was still absolutely elated to be standing on such hallowed ground. The thought that Alfred Hitchcock had once been in the same spot I was now stalking was literally mind-blowing. So incredibly cool!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: MINI of Universal City, aka the Psycho car dealership, is located at 4270 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. You can visit the dealership’s official website here.

October 10, 2011September 29, 2017

The “Double Indemnity” House

A couple of weekends ago I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills to stalk one of the most famous macabre movie locations of all time – the Spanish-Colonial-Revival-style abode that was featured in Double Indemnity. Incredibly, up until a few weeks ago I had yet to see the 1944 film noir classic, which was directed by Billy Wilder, even though it is largely considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time. And I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised when I finally did sit down to watch it. Not only did the film not seem dated, but I was absolutely riveted to my chair for the entire 107 minute run time. Sure, some scenes were a bit cheesy – especially the love scenes between Pacific All Risk Insurance Company salesman Walter Neff (aka Fred MacMurray) and disgruntled housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (aka Barbara Stanwyck), not to mention Walter’s silly pronunciation of the word “baby” – but overall the film was incredibly well-done and thoroughly suspenseful, which is shocking being that it was made almost a full seven decades ago. If you have yet to see it, I cannot more highly recommend doing so!

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In Double Indemnity, the supposed-Glendale-area hillside abode pictured above is where Phyllis lives with her abusive oilman husband, Mr. Dietrichson (aka Tom Powers), and his daughter, Lola Dietrichson (aka Jean Heather). It is while walking up to the home at the very beginning of the film that Walter Neff utters what is arguably its most famous line. Of the residence, he says, “It was one of those California Spanish houses everyone was nuts about ten or fifteen years ago. This one must have cost somebody about thirty thousand bucks – that is if he ever finished paying for it.” It is at the house that Phyllis and Walter first meet and fall in love. The two later cook up a scheme to purchase an accident insurance policy for Phyllis’ unknowing husband and then murder him to collect on the claim. The “double indemnity” of the title refers to a clause in the policy which stipulates that in the case of certain more unlikely accidents, i.e. a death on a train, the amount of the insurance payout would double.

Amazingly enough, as you can see above, the house has remained virtually unchanged since 1944 when Double Indemnity was filmed. I simply cannot express how cool I think that is!

The only real difference is the garage door, which has since been modernized. Otherwise though, the home looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in all of its black-and-white glory.

The view has obviously changed a bit in the ensuing years, though. Winking smile

The screenplay for the movie, which was co-written by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, was based on an 8-part serial written by James M. Cain that was first published in Liberty Magazine in 1936. Cain based his story on the real life 1927 murder of Albert Snyder by his wife Ruth Snyder and her lover Henry Judd Gray, the trial of which Cain had covered while working as a journalist in New York. And amazingly enough, it seems as if the house that wound up being used in the movie was the very same house that Cain had written about in his story. In the book he calls the abode the “House of Death” and, of it, he says, “I drove out to Glendale to put three new truck drivers on a brewery company bond, and then I remembered this renewal over in Hollywoodland. I decided to run over there. That was how I came to this House of Death, that you’ve been reading about in the papers. It didn’t look like a House of Death when I saw it. It was just a Spanish house, like all the rest of them in California, with white walls, red tile roof, and a patio out to one side. It was built cock-eyed. The garage was under the house, the first floor was over that and the rest of it was spilled up the hill any way they could get it in. You climbed some stone steps to the front door, so I parked the car and went up there.” Cain’s words could not be a more perfect description of the residence that appeared in the movie, which leads me to believe that the abode must have served as the inspiration for the home in the story and that Cain then later suggested the place to producers to use for the filming. So incredibly cool!

According to an October 17, 2009 Los Angeles Times article, an almost exact replica of the interior of the house was recreated on a soundstage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for the filming.

As you can see above, in real life the home’s front door is much closer to the bottom of the central staircase than it was onscreen. The actual residence, which was built in 1927 and boasts 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and 3,077 square feet of living space, currently belongs to interior designer/set decorator Mae Brunken. You can check out some fabulous photographs of the actual interior of the property here. (The photograph of the home pictured above does not belong to me, but remains the sole property of the Los Angeles Times and photographer Ricardo DeAratanha).

In an interesting twist, as you can see above, producers had the address number of the Double Indemnity house changed from “6301” to “4760” for the filming. I would not have thought that sort of thing happened back in the days before DVD players, pause buttons, and the internet, but all evidence to the contrary.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Double Indemnity house is located at 6301 Quebec Drive in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills.