Part 2

    The Actual Southern California Locations where
    1995's "Heat" was filmed.

    [ Click here for an interactive MAP of all "Heat" locations with aerial photos! ]


    * Warning: due to the gritty nature of "Heat", some of its filming locations are found in urban areas
    that may have a high crime rate, and could be dangerous to visit. Exercise reasonable caution.


    Before each scene description, you will see a number (for example: 00:07:05);
    this is the time of the movie (on the DVD) when the scene appears.







    0:18:20 min: Following the armored car robbery, the four crew members (Robert De Niro,
    Val Kilmer, Kevin Gage & Tom Sizemore) meet inside a diner. The robbery was successful,
    but one member, 'Waingro', lost his head and slaughtered the men guarding the armored car.
    In the restaurant, De Niro roughs up 'Waingro', then drags him outside and tries to kill him.

    These scenes were shot at an actual restaurant, a place called Johnie's Broiler, which was
    located at 7447 Firestone Blvd, in Downey, CA, about 12 miles southeast of downtown L.A.

    When I visited the place a few years back, the restaurant was still open and doing business,
    and was still being used for filming of movies such as "Short Cuts," "Bounce,"
     "What's Love Got To Do With It?", "Unstrung Heroes" & "Reality Bites".

    In January of 2007, the building was illegally demolished. But there's good news.
    In 2009, the property was acquired by Bob's Big Boy, who rebuilt the diner, using
    the original 1958 plans, and some of the materials salvaged from Johnie's,
    so the new Big Boy closely resembles the original Googie-style restaurant.
    It even has its own website, at bobsbigboybroiler.com. And they are once
    again using it as a filming location, for productions such as "Mad Men".









0:25:45: Robert De Niro, a pro who believes in "never getting attached to anything
you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the
corner," meets up with the woman who will make him reconsider that rule. He and
'Eady' (Amy Brenneman) meet at the counter of a restaurant. And as you might
guess, it's a real restaurant. It's called the Broadway Deli, but no, it's not located
on Broadway; it's at the south end of 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

It's more modern & upscale than your average deli, and attracts its fair share of celebs.
The exact address 1457 3rd Street Promenade, and it is just a few steps north of the
Santa Monica Place mall (the exterior of which served as the infamous Ridgemont High
in the opening credits of 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High").

[Update: As of 2012, the Broadway Deli appears to have closed.]








00:32:09: 'Lt. Vincent Hanna' (Al Pacino) and his partner travel to a dangerous-looking
shanty town, where they walk past a dog-fighting / cock-fighting operation, and
interrogate informant 'Albert Torena' (Ricky Harris). This unusual location was found
on Terminal Island, located just across the Vincent Thomas Bridge from
(east of) San Pedro, CA.  (You don't want to go there. Trust me.)
 *.





00:42:00: 'Donald Breedan' (Dennis Haysbert, you may know him as 'President David Palmer'
on TV's "24") is a parolee just out of prison, who goes to work at a local diner, where the
work is hard and the owner is corrupt. Here, we see the back of that diner, which is, in reality
the world's oldest Bob's Big Boy restaurant, located at 4211 W Riverside Drive, in the
city of Burbank. We'll see this same diner later in the film in a key role...

(Riverside Drive, by the way, is the same street where Bob Hope lived, not far away.
And Burbank is home to NBC Studios, Disney Studios and Warner Bros Studios.)






00:44:30: Al Pacino goes to a Koreatown strip mall, and makes his way to a hidden
dance club downstairs, where he interviews his informant's brother (Tone Loc).

That small Asian shopping center is located at the southwest corner of W. 8th Street
and S. Serrano Avenue. in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles, two streets
south of Wilshire Blvd., and two streets east of Western Ave. The Asian video store
that Al Pacino parks in front of is located in the center, at 3506 W. 8th Street.
 * 







* Locations marked with an asterisk may be located in high-crime areas. Exercise reasonable caution.


More Heat Locations!
(Just click the arrows)

          

Some of the photos on this page are stills from the DVD of "Heat"
(which you can buy by clicking here) and are copyright Warner Bros.

The rest of the page is Copyright © 1999-2024-Gary Wayne / Seeing-Stars.com