My post a while back about the changes to L.A. since the 1940s got me thinking again about the experience of visiting real movie locations, something I wrote about a few years ago (here). As I said then, it can be quite an uncanny experience visiting the spot where a familiar movie scene was filmed. What has changed since that post, though, is the roll-out of Google’s Street View. Where seeing the real locations where movies were shot was once something of a pilgrimage, these days we can do it virtually. So I thought it would be fun to find a few familiar or iconic locations on Street View.
Unlike my earlier post, I don’t have any larger point to make about changes to the city as a result of this post. I just thought it would be interesting. Perhaps you see no point in dong this… if so, fair enough. Move along, there’s nothing to see here…
To start, how about the site of my first location visits: Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, which has changed remarkably little since it was Amity in Jaws. (You can pan around for a better look in the Street View embed. If they don’t show up, try another device: they don’t work on my iPhone, for example).
Here’s the rough spot for the location of another iconic image: Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Manhattan.
Here’s another spot I’ve actually been to: Seaside in Florida, used as the setting for The Truman Show. (My impressions of that visit are here).
Here’s the house from E.T.
The cafe from Inception.
Barbara Stanwyck’s house from Double Indemnity:
The house from Shadow of a Doubt:
Here’s one of the few real-world locations for It’s a Wonderful Life (which was mostly shot on backlots), the Martini House in Bailey Park. What seems in the movie an incongruously barren housing estate, as I argue towards the end of this essay, is now an established suburb. The film shot is, obviously, a montage of frames.
And finally, for a local (for me) example, how about the house from Dogs in Space?
Credit to Tony Reeve’s Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations for pinpointing most of these.
Note for internet crazy people: While I haven’t posted any locations here that aren’t readily available elsewhere, it’s worth just noting that some of these are private homes. Don’t be idiotic and bother the people who live there.