In
order to ambush the armored car, the good guys stage a massive
traffic jam, which slows the progress
of the armored car and allows them to influence its direction. The traffic
jam is centered at the corner of Hollywood & Highland.
In the
photo above, you are looking south down
Highland Avenue, from the corner of Hollywood Blvd.
& Highland Ave.
In the
aerial photo below, you are looking southwest
down on the same corner. Near the top
left of the photo is the Souvenirs Of Hollywood
store, on the southwest corner of that intersection (6800
Hollywood Blvd).
Stars from the Walk of Fame
are visible on the sidewalks.
You can also see a little of the Hollywood
& Highland center on the right
side of this photo.
In
the photo below, you are looking north
up Highland
Avenue (from the same intersection). The
white church in the distance is the Hollywood
United Methodist Church (at 6817 Franklin
Avenue), where scenes from the movies
"Back to the Future" & "Sister Act"
were filmed.
You
can also see the southeast side of the Hollywood & Highland center,
on the left side of the photo, near the driver's head. (If you keep
driving north up Highland, you'll soon come to the Hollywood
Bowl.)
The
shot below is looking northwest, from the southeast corner
of the intersection of Hollywood & Highland, looking at the Hollywood & Highland
center, as the armored car turns west
on Hollywood Blvd. and heads towards Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
You
can see the entrance to the Kodak Theatre
near the left side of the photo. The Kodak is the permanent home
of the annual Academy Awards (Oscars) show.
As
the armored car nears Grauman's Chinese, the mini-Coopers, which were following
it west on Hollywood Blvd, abruptly hang a U-turn, driving over the curb,
up onto the sidewalk on the north side
of Hollywood Blvd (in front of the Hollywood
& Highland center). Note the stars on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame on the sidewalk.
In the
photo below, we look west as
the mini-Cooper heads east down the north side of Hollywood Blvd. You can
see Disney's El Capitan theatre
on the south side of the street (on the left side of the photo.)
The
mini-Coopers then head down the stairs of an underground terminal of the
new Red Line subway system.
The actual terminal is located at the northwest
corner of Hollywood & Highland,
beneath the new Hollywood & Highland center.
(That same subway terminal was used in another 2003 movie, "Hollywood
Homicide", with Harrison
Ford. And even before it was finished,
the station was featured in 1994's "Speed".)
The
mini-Coopers race an oncoming subway train to the tunnel, stop the train
to block the tunnel entrance from pursuers, then wait underground for the
armored car to come crashing down from the street above.
MORE "Italian
Job" Filming Locations!
'
The photos on this page are
stills from the DVD of "The Italian Job"
(which you can buy by clicking
here) and are copyright Sony/Columbia/Tri-Star Pictures.
The rest of the page is copyright
Gary J. Wayne - 2007
/ Seeing-Stars.com