Film Locations

The Three Stooges put the slap in slapstick. For over 30 years in shorts and films, the Stooges poked, pummeled, slipped and slid into moviegoers' hearts. The Farrelly brothers even tried to re-create their magic of mayhem this year in the comedy "The Three Stooges" with uneven success. Arguments persist over whether the Stooge comedies starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine and the beloved Jerome "Curly" Howard were the funniest or if the later comedies with Moe and Curly's oldest brother Shemp - he took over in 1946 after Curly suffered a stroke - had the most guffaws.

Griffith Park, Point Dume, the 6th Street Bridge near downtown L.A. and a former community hospital in Boyle Heights reputed to be haunted ranked among the most popular film locations in 2012, according to a new survey. Eight of the top 10 sites for shoots of movies, TV shows, commercials and music videos on city and county streets are publicly owned, the annual survey conducted for the Los Angeles Times by FilmL.A. Inc. found. "We continue to see a considerable amount of filming that happens on government-owned properties or facilities, from beaches and parks, to public schools and libraries," said Phil Sokoloski, spokesman for FilmL.A., which handles film permits.

The Facebook page for the upcoming movie “People Like Us” contains the expected highlights -- photos of stars Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks, video interviews, information on advance ticket sales, and a trailer. Then there is something else -- an interactive “People Like Us Locations Map” displaying locations of the various restaurants and businesses featured in the DreamWorks Pictures/Reliance Entertainment film. Visitors can see photos of houses and neighborhoods where the characters lived, ate tacos, watched the sunset, bought groceries and even did their laundry.

The Three Stooges put the slap in slapstick. For over 30 years in shorts and films, the Stooges poked, pummeled, slipped and slid into moviegoers' hearts. The Farrelly brothers even tried to re-create their magic of mayhem this year in the comedy "The Three Stooges" with uneven success. Arguments persist over whether the Stooge comedies starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine and the beloved Jerome "Curly" Howard were the funniest or if the later comedies with Moe and Curly's oldest brother Shemp - he took over in 1946 after Curly suffered a stroke - had the most guffaws.

With its increasingly complicated riddles and mysteries, ABC's "Lost" is exactly the kind of program designed for multiple viewings. Or Cliffs Notes. Or both. But for anyone who feels as hopelessly confused by the island goings-on as the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, the network is offering some guidance with "enhanced" episodes broadcast a week after regular shows air, which are then available online. Viewers can look to the bottom of the screen for commentary and tidbits -- trivia about the actors or the characters they portray, film locations and other items so obscure that probably only the writers get the inside joke.

Over several days last week, actors Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin donned fedoras and 1940s-era LAPD badges to re-shoot scenes for the Warner Bros. crime drama “Gangster Squad” in Los Angeles' historic Chinatown. During nighttime shoots, filmmakers staged car chases and a gunfight on Gin Ling Way with blazing machine guns, and set off a truck explosion. “It's been many years since we've had a full-scale feature film of this scope in Chinatown,” said George Yu, executive director of the Los Angeles Chinatown Business Council.

Last spring, John Polcyn began spending $300,000 to make his 720-acre ranch west of Acton a suitable replacement for Indian Dunes, the popular location where TV and movie projects such as "China Beach," "Call to Glory" and "The Color Purple" were filmed. Last winter, Indian Dunes, owned by the Newhall Land & Farming Co., was converted to farmland. "It's been better than I ever expected," said Polcyn, owner of Polsa Rosa Ranch. "We've been pretty busy."

Hollywood's production community is yelling "cut!" to a plan by the LAPD to take over the jobs of handling security -- many of which are filled by former cops -- on film sets. A coalition of labor and industry groups, including the Teamsters and the Motion Picture Assn. of America, is seeking to block the Los Angeles Police Department's effort that would force production companies to hire only off-duty active police officers to control crowds and direct traffic at film locations.

Two of the entertainment industry's most powerful players, MCA president Sidney Sheinberg and superagent Michael Ovitz, led a high-level contingent to Hawaii last week to inspect personally what is looming as the most costly movie in Hollywood history.

For the past few weeks, a massive water tank plopped in the middle of the Paramount Pictures lot in Hollywood has been the site of intense secrecy. Security guards patrol the perimeter of the menacing structure, which has been hidden from public view by giant blue sheeting and towering scaffolding. The secrecy is no different at a warehouse lot miles away in the City of Commerce, where a huge replica of a rusting supertanker deck has been erected for a movie being shot.

It's time for a retake after 100 years in downtown Los Angeles. The historic Tower movie theater at the corner of South Broadway and 8th Street is poised to get a dramatic new lease on life - this time as a concert venue with an indoor-outdoor bar and coffee house along 8th Street and a plush basement nightclub-style bar on the Broadway side. The renovation will cost several million dollars and will take about a year and half, said Shahram Delijani, whose family owns the Tower and three other South Broadway theaters.

Over several days last week, actors Ryan Gosling and Josh Brolin donned fedoras and 1940s-era LAPD badges to re-shoot scenes for the Warner Bros. crime drama “Gangster Squad” in Los Angeles' historic Chinatown. During nighttime shoots, filmmakers staged car chases and a gunfight on Gin Ling Way with blazing machine guns, and set off a truck explosion. “It's been many years since we've had a full-scale feature film of this scope in Chinatown,” said George Yu, executive director of the Los Angeles Chinatown Business Council.

Bob Hope Airport in Burbank has reopened its gates to Hollywood for the first time in more than a decade, after prohibiting film shoots there since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The tragedy put the nation's entire air transportation system on high alert. In the weeks and months after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, security requirements put a heavy demand on the regional airport's staff. With safety the top priority, one of the restrictions that Burbank put into place at the time was a ban on all film production activity.

The Facebook page for the upcoming movie “People Like Us” contains the expected highlights -- photos of stars Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks, video interviews, information on advance ticket sales, and a trailer. Then there is something else -- an interactive “People Like Us Locations Map” displaying locations of the various restaurants and businesses featured in the DreamWorks Pictures/Reliance Entertainment film. Visitors can see photos of houses and neighborhoods where the characters lived, ate tacos, watched the sunset, bought groceries and even did their laundry.

Film buffs are eager to see where famed Hollywood stars lived and visit the locations of classic films. But few want to haggle with vendors who stand by the road selling star maps. But thanks to Turner Classic Movies, cumbersome maps are history. The Hollywood Homes & Classic Film Locations app available for iPhone and iPod Touch offers a look at 100 Hollywood locations including the homes of the rich and famous, movie studios, celebrity hangouts and film locations. TCM host Robert Osborne is on hand to introduce the app's features.

Film commissioners from Indonesia to Uruguay to New Orleans converged on the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday for the 27th annual Locations Show. About 500 exhibitors from 40 countries are attending the two-day event, which is expected to draw 2,500 film industry executives, producers and location scouts eager to find the latest information about where to shoot their projects and what kind of incentives they can fetch. Hosted by the Assn. of Film Commissioners International, this year's event marks the trade group's inaugural offering of speakers and panels on production trends, tax credits, film financing and other topics.

For almost a century, Bronson Canyon, in the southwest section of Griffith Park, has been a popular location for feature films and television. John Ford used the area for the pivotal scene in his 1956 western masterpiece, "The Searchers," in which John Wayne rides down the hill looking for his long-lost niece (Natalie Wood), who had been kidnapped as a child by Indians. The first movie to use the canyon as a location was 1919's "Lightning Bryce. " Over the years, serials such as 1935's "The Phantom Empire" and 1936's "Flash Gordon" were shot there as well as such sci-fi classics as 1956's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

California's Kern River Canyon was once a backdrop in the movie "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." And, more recently, the 1995 movie "Twister" touched down in tiny Lebec, Calif. Facts and sites both obscure and famous star in a new movie map of California, now playing on the Internet site of the California Division of Tourism (http://gocalif.ca.gov). As of last week, the map listed sites for about 240 movies and television shows made in the last 50 years.

TV dramas routinely confine actors to dank soundstages or a few square miles of exterior streetscapes, but "Missing" offers star Ashley Judd loads more room to roam. Filmed in France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Russia, Croatia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria, the ABC spy series traffics in the kind of international beauty shots commonly found in James Bond or Jason Bourne movies but rarely seen on the small screen. Judd, who plays Becca Winstone, an ex-CIA agent in search of her kidnapped son, savored the opportunity to soak up local culture in between takes.

The battleship Iowa, which once transported President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a summit with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in Tehran, is embarking on a new mission that would include a recurring role in Hollywood. The 887-foot-long World War II-era ship is moving this week from the San Francisco Bay to its new digs at the Port of Los Angeles, potentially becoming a coveted film location as well as a star tourist attraction. On Friday, the Los Angeles City Council approved a 10-year lease agreement with the nonprofit group Pacific Battleship Center, which plans to use the vessel as a military museum, education center and event venue that could accommodate filming.