"Nancy Drew", the 2007 movie version of the classic girl sleuth's adventures, starring Emma Roberts, is a virtual treasure trove of Los Angeles filming locations.

That might seem odd, since the original Nancy Drew stories took place in Nancy's Midwestern home town of River Heights.

But in the movie, Nancy and her Dad leave River Heights and move to Hollywood, where Nancy gets caught up in an old mystery surrounding the death of a movie actress.

Among the L.A. locations in the film are:

• Hollywood High School (at 1521 N. Highland Ave., in Hollywood): the school which Nancy attends, as well as the sports track behind the school, where Nancy outraces her jealous classmates.

( However, they cheated a bit with the school interiors, most of which were filmed 30 miles away, at Long Beach Polytechnic High, at 1600 Atlantic Ave, in Long Beach, CA. )

• The Griffith Park tunnel (on Vermont Avenue, just north of the Observatory): in the scene where Nancy and her little friend Corky are almost run over by a truck in a tunnel. This is the same tunnel used recently in "The O.C." (in the episode where Marissa was killed), and it was also seen as the entrance to Toontown in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".
  
  
  

• The Griffith Park Observatory: it is the domed building seen in the background when Nancy and Corky climb up a hillside to get away from whoever tried to run them over). The Griffith Observatory has been seen in many movies, including "The Terminator", "The Rocketeer" and "Rebel Without a Cause."
  
  
  

• L.A.'s Chinatown (north of downtown): is where Nancy has to dispose of a bomb, as well where she goes into a Chinatown store selling special boxes (looking for a hidden will). The streets around Chinatown, such as Alpine, are also seen, when Nancy and her friends are involved in a car chase (while keeping below the speed limit). In the photo above, Nancy is in Chinatown's Central Plaza, and the camera is looking north up Sun Mung Way, towards Gin Ling Way.
  
  
• The K.G. Louie box store we see her enter is located at 432 Gin Ling Way, in Chinatown's Central Plaza. That's it's real name. In reality, the store sells imported giftware, artists supplies and Zodiac-related souvenirs. (Central Plaza is bordered by N. Hill Street, College Street, Broadway and Bernard Street.)
  
  
  
• Union Station (at 800 N. Alameda St., in downtown L.A.): is the train station outside of which Bruce Willis is shooting a film, when Nancy interrupts the action to remind them that the reading of Miranda rights didn't start until 1963. Union Station has been seen in countless films over the years. We also see part of Olvera Street in that same scene. Olvera Street is the historic original Mexican plaza where the city of Los Angeles was born. It is right across Alameda Street from (west of) Union Station. *
  
  
• Los Angeles City Hall (at First Street, between Main & Spring Streets, in downtown L.A.): both the inside and outside of City Hall are seen in a scene where Nancy and the adopted daughter of the murdered woman (Dehlia Draycott) go looking for evidence.
  
  
  
• The Los Angeles Theatre (at 615 S. Broadway, in downtown Los Angeles): this is the theatre where Nancy wakes up (lying atop a pile of red marquee letters), realizes she has been kidnapped, and manages to escape. (The alley to the side of the classic theatre was also shown - after the escape. This same alley was recently used in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang".) The theatre itself is no longer open to the public (it's mainly used for filming now), except once a year, during the "Last Remaining Seats" program. *
  
  
  

• Calvary Presbyterian Church (at 1050 Fremont Avenue, in South Pasadena): is the River Heights church where Nancy stops two thieves from robbing the church.
  
  
  
• 1102 Del Rey Ave, in Pasadena: is a residential home where Nancy knocks on the door, when she's looking for the adopted daughter of the mysterious actress (Dehlia Draycott).
  
  
  
• I'm on the trail of the Dehlia Draycott mansion, where much of the movie takes place. I can tell you that it's in the city of La Canada Flintridge (northwest of Pasadena), and that the producers then made the yard look overgrown - but I haven't yet tracked down the exact address.