0:27:24: Next, Vincent then tells Max to go to 7565 Fountain Ave., the address
of his second victim, defense lawyer Sylvester Clarke.
But along the way,
they are pulled over by a police car, because of the taxi's smashed windshield.
Vincent threatens that he will kill the policemen if Max can't
convince them to go away.
Fortunately, at the last minute, the cops are called away on an emergency.
This police pull-over scene was
not filmed on Fountain Avenue.
(We never really see Fountain Avenue in this film.)
Rather, it was filmed about two miles to the northeast of that address,
on a stretch of Cahuenga Blvd, near Franklin Ave.
In the screencap above, the taxi is heading northeast on the 1800 block of
N. Cahuenga Blvd, between Franklin Ave & Yucca Street, in Hollywood.
Here is a matching StreetView, looking NE on Cahuenga, towards Yucca.
With the cops behind them, the taxi drives north through the intersection of
Cahuenga & Franklin, and they end up pulled over & parked at the curb on
the east side of Cahuenga, at the northeast corner of Franklin & Cahuenga,
(about where Bert's Garage is today), at 1912 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
( Don't be confused by the gas station seen behind them. That is not the
current Chevron station, to the north. It was an old Shell station that used
to be at the southeast corner of Franklin & Cahuenga. )
Here is a Google StreetView of the bus stop where they were stopped.
0:29:58: When they get to (what is supposed to be) the Fountain Avenue address, Vincent has
Max park in a dark alleyway, where he ties Max to
the steering wheel of the cab,
and leaves him sitting there, while Vincent goes in to kill Sylvester Clarke.
When Max attempts to escape,
he encounters a group of thugs who rob him.
Unfortunately for the thugs, Vincent returns, catches them in the
act, and kills them.
I had a very hard time finding the location
of this alleyway. Fortunately a fan, Chas Demster,
managed to track it down using Live
Local, and let me know where it was. (Thanks, Chas!)
It turns out that the alley runs north/south between Wilshire Blvd and W. 7th Street,
dividing the block between Vermont Ave (on the east) and New Hampshire Ave (on the west).
It's about two miles west of downtown L.A., in the Koreatown area.
The screenshot above is looking north, towards Wilshire.
The building on the right (east) side in that bottom photo (with Tom Cruise) is the
north tower of the Wilshire Bank, at 3200 Wilshire Blvd.
The building on the left (west) side, with the balconies jutting out, is now called
the Wilshire Galleria, at 3240 Wilshire Blvd. But the building was originally
a very posh department store known as I Magnin, which had a star following
of its own back in Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1940, Esther Williams used
to work at the store, and later spoke of encountering celeb customers
such at Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and the Andrew sisters there.
Here is a Google StreetView looking south down the alley, from Wilshire.
0:33:03: While Max is tied to the cab's steering
wheel in the alley, Vincent goes
upstairs to the glass-walled
apartment of Mr. Clarke, at what
is supposed to be the Fountain Avenue address.
However, from the glass walls of the apartment, you can see the entire
downtown Los Angeles skyline - up
close.
This was obviously shot in downtown L.A., and definitely
not from Fountain.
I'm told it was shot at "a hotel on South Flower Street", which
almost
certainly means The Standard hotel
at 550 S. Flower,
in downtown L.A.
Here is a Google StreetView of the hotel.
The view out the window perfectly matches the skyscraper view from The Standard, but
the windows thorough which we see it do not appear to be The Standard's windows.
That's because they faked it. And this scene is actually
a composite of two different locations - miles apart.
The downtown view is indeed that seen from The Standard, but the room is not in that hotel.
That round room, with it's unique windows, is actually the Panorama Suite on the
top floor of Loew's Hollywood Hotel, at 1755 North Highland Avenue, in
the Hollywood & Highland complex, eight miles northwest of downtown.
(At the time, it was called the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel.)
They green-screened in The Standard's downtown view behind those curved windows.
(You can stay there, but this Panorama Suite will cost you $2,550 per night.)
Here is a Google StreetView of the exterior of that round Panorama Suite.
