Movie Locations

Overall production days were down 11% last week for TV, film and commercial shoots in the Los Angeles area compared with the same period last year, according to FlilmL.A. Inc.

For the sunbathers around the pools and waterfalls of the Mirage resort hotel, it's an afternoon of trade-offs. Because it's so hot, the strawberry daiquiris aren't staying slushy. On the other hand, the guests can pretend to nonchalantly dip in the water to cool off--and coyly position themselves in the background as the Panavision cameras film Chevy Chase floating on a pool lounge. Warner Bros.'

Armed only with a flashlight, director Mick Jackson leads his "Volcano" camera crew into the inky depths of a 100-foot-long tube that's dressed up like a Los Angeles storm drain. His flashlight beam bounces off walls coated with blackened gunk, playing on motor oil cans scattered on the floor and a thicket of stalactite-like roots.

This ghostly old mountain mining town makes Brigadoon look like Tomorrowland--that's how much folks here hate change. At the Metals Bar and Lounge downtown, the FBI bust of the renowned Wallace bordellos in 1991 is regarded as a jackboot cultural crackdown akin to Beijing's raid on the Dalai Lama. "Wallace was built on mining, prostitution and gambling, and we're not ashamed of it," says Wallace resident Okie Ross.

People who own homes or businesses in the city might be able to see their properties on television or in the movies. The city's economic development department is putting together a slide portfolio of potential locations that will be forwarded to the Orange County Film Commission, which maintains a library of prospective sites for entertainment industry scouts. John Sherwood, Dana Point's manager of economic development, said the entire community benefits from film projects.

If you're a "MASH" fan, you probably remember the opening scene on the TV show when the helicopter carrying wounded soldiers lands on a dusty plateau in the back country of Korea. It was not really Korea, though. The show was filmed on a rugged stretch in the Santa Monica Mountains, now part of Malibu Creek State Park near Agoura Hills.

Jim Lemley sweeps aside the curtains in his trailer on the Palace Embankment location of "Anna Karenina" and settles back with a cup of coffee to drink in the view. "This is one of the best parts. I could sit here all day and stare out at the Peter and Paul Fortress," the production manager says midway through the film's shooting in this Imperial Russian capital.

Canoga Park resident Ruth Willis had her autograph book at the ready Thursday, just in case Steven Spielberg showed up. Willis lives in an apartment building at Saticoy Street and Owensmouth Avenue, near a condemned, earthquake-damaged apartment house that is a location for a scene from a new TV series, "High Incident." The show, about a suburban police force in a fictional California city called El Camino, is produced by DreamWorks SKG, of which Spielberg is a principal.

A production company has began shooting a new John Cusack movie in the Old Town section of Monrovia, transforming Myrtle Avenue between Lemon and Lime streets into a Detroit suburb known as Grosse Pointe, said Gerard Averill, assistant location manager. Filming is expected to go on until Feb. 10. The inside of an abandoned gymnasium is now a convincing radio station, and stucco storefronts have been covered in fake brick to affect a Midwest-suburb feel.