Seeing Stars: Where the Movies Were Shot (on Location)
1995(part 2)
In the 1995 teen comedy "CLUELESS,"
starring Alicia Silverstone, the high
school scenes were really shot on campus at Occidental
College, located between Pasadena and Glendale (at 1600 Campus
Road), in the L.A. suburb of Eagle Rock.
[Buy the Movie.]
Also in "CLUELESS,"
when Alicia Silverstone and her
friends went shopping at a mall, it was filmed at the Westside Pavilion
mall (located
at 10800 Pico Blvd., in West L.A.).
And remember the 1990 music video of Tom Petty's
song "FREE FALLIN',"
where the singer rides a tall escalator inside a mall? Well, that video
was also shot inside the Westside Pavilion mall.
[Buy the Movie.]
In
the 1995 film, "MONEY TRAIN"
(starring Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes),
the action was focused around the New York subway system. Ironically, most
of those "New York" subway scenes were actually filmed right
here in Los Angeles.
Columbia Pictures built an enormous outdoor set (3,000
feet long, 20 feet high, and 60 feet across) in downtown, over four existing
Southern Pacific train tracks, just
offNorth Broadway, near the north end of Chinatown.
Inside this $4.5 million wooden box, they built replicas of three
New York subway stations, then retrofitted actual subway cars with Chevy
engines so they could go from zero to 40 m.p.h. in only 400 feet, enabling
the producers to shoot scenes of the trains racing and crashing, fires
in tunnels, and people jumping from one speeding train to another. *
[Buy the Movie.]
There
is a dramatic scene in the 1995 movie "OUTBREAK"
where Dustin Hoffman (trying to
stop a deadly virus) jumps from a helicopter onto the deck of a Korean
cargo ship; crew members of the ship have recently smuggled a virus-infected
monkey into the country. Aboard ship, he discovers the bloody remains of
a crew member who has died from the horrible disease.
That
scene was actually shot aboard the S.S. Lane Victory,
a historic WW2 merchant marine ship which is now permanently docked at
Pier 94 at the Los Angeles Harbor in San Pedro (under the Vincent
Thomas Bridge - near the Cruise center.)
The Lane Victory was also was used for the 1999 NBC TV movie, "MUTINY,"
produced by Morgan Freeman (who
was also in "Outbreak.") And the ship's wake was used
in the movie "Titanic"!
(The Lane Victory is now open for public
tours.) [Buy the Movie.]
Speaking of "OUTBREAK,"
the hospital scenes in that suspense film were shot at the Huntington
Memorial Hospital, 100 Congress Street, Pasadena.
[Buy the Movie.]
In Oliver Stone's controversial 1995 film "NIXON,"
there's a scene where President Nixon (played by Anthony
Hopkins) is riding in the back of his limousine when it pulls
out of the west gate of the White House, past
a group of anti-war demonstrators who are waving protest signs and yelling
"Hell No! We Won't Go!" This scene was actually filmed
at El Dorado Park in Long Beach,
by the duck pond (near Studebaker Road & E. Los Arcos Street).
This same Long Beach duck pond was used for a nighttime
scene in 1998's "THE NEGOTIATOR"
(starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin
Spacey), where it played the role of a Chicago park.
[Buy the Movie.]
The hospital scenes in the 1995 film "HEAT"
(starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino
and Val Kilmer) were shot at the St. Mary Medical Center
(1050 Linden Avenue) in downtown Long Beach. The
hospital's usual Holy Family statues, located above their fluorescent sign,
were replaced by a full-size copy of Michelangelo's "The Pieta"
for the movie.
The hospital is a frequent site for on-location movie work. A scene from
1998's "THE X-FILES"
movie, was also shot there, where David Duchovny
winds up in the hospital. Other movies shot at St. Mary's include 1998's
vampire movie "BLADE" (starring
Wesley Snipes), and 1998's "GUNSHY."
*
[Buy the Movie.]
In the 1995 drama "WHITE
MAN'S BURDEN," John Travolta
kidnaps Harry Belafonte at
gunpoint from a dirt yard, outside a pair of seedy duplex apartments. This
scene was shot down by the docks in a rough part of town near the Los Angeles
Harbor. Those apartments (and the dirt yard) can be found at 420 &
422 Avalon Blvd., in Wilmington (tucked
away behind a taco stand on the east side of Avalon, between D Street &
E Street). *
[Buy the Movie.]
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