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Kim Basinger is escorted by Russell Crowe in a scene from the film ‘L.A. Confidential.’
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‘L.A. Confidential’: The ultimate filming locations map

From Los Feliz to Long Beach, the 1997 classic exposes rot beneath the glamour of Los Angeles

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Kim Basinger is escorted by Russell Crowe in a scene from the film ‘L.A. Confidential.’
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“I remember the first time I got off the plane in LA. I came up to Hollywood, on La Brea or La Cienega, I can't remember, through the oil fields,” says L.A. Confidential production designer Jeannine Oppewall. “And I thought to myself: ‘What the hell kind of city is this, with oil fields in the middle of it?’”

For Oppewall, who spoke to Curbed LA on the eve of the 1997 neo-noir’s 20th anniversary, the illusory romance of the City of Angels was stripped away in an instant. That's what the movie does too, puncturing our inflated ideas of Old Hollywood glamour by plumbing the psychological depths of its key characters and (sometimes literally) exposing the rot underneath.

As if to underscore that point, director Curtis Hanson shot the film at a number of locations noted for their nostalgic allure: The Frolic Room, Formosa Cafe, Boardners, Crossroads of the World. Within them, you are as likely to find gangsters and call girls as movie stars. It’s not that the director (who grew up in Los Angeles) wants us us to despise the city. He simply encourages us to see the beauty in its contradictions.

“The character represents how I feel about Los Angeles and what I want people to feel about LA,” Hanson told the Los Angeles Times of Kim Basinger’s high-class call girl and Veronica Lake-lookalike Lynn Bracken. “She’s a natural beauty with a phony image, a disguise that’s all about selling it to the suckers. But when you go beyond the image, as when you go beyond LA as the city of manufactured illusion, the character is not only beautiful but totally self-aware. Underneath, she knows the truth about who she is. Everybody else is struggling to figure it out.”

Below, Oppewall takes us on a tour of the film’s locations, spanning from the hills of Los Feliz to the suburbs of Long Beach. It’s all off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.

(Note: Several of the locations listed are private residences. Please be respectful.)

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Crossroads of the World

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Designer Robert Vincent Derrah's "pedestrian village" in Hollywood is the site of Sid Hudgens' (Danny DeVito) cluttered Hush-Hush office. According to Oppewall, renting a space in clear view of the complex's iconic tower was key.

“That involved walking up and down and banging on the doors and seeing who would be willing to vacate his or her premises for a week or so,” she says.

To keep the period illusion intact, Oppewall and her team installed a green hedge in front of a “mean-spirited” metal fence fronting Sunset Boulevard, which betrayed “a non-ending stream of contemporary cars.”

Crossroads of the World’s iconic tower, as seen from the exterior of Sid Hudgens’ office
Screen grab via Warner Bros.

Long Beach

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Bud White (Russell Crowe) gives a domestic abuser a taste of his own medicine at this now extensively-remodeled house in suburban Long Beach.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Pacific Electric Building

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“It's condos now, but then it was pretty much abandoned and inhabited only by the odd filmmaking company,” says Oppewall of the historic former headquarters of the Pacific Electric transit company (and later the Southern Pacific railroad).

“We shot the detective bureau and the interrogation rooms and the police chief's office and the office of the District Attorney [there],” she continued. “We managed to corral all eight floors of that building, and I found places that could work for all of those locations.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Liquor store

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Bud first meets prostitute/future love interest Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) at this Midtown liquor store, which now stands vacant. Guess the vice squad shut ’em down.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

California Bank building

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The scene of Jack Vincennes’ (Kevin Spacey) pot-bust photo op was one of the most difficult locations to find. Tasked with tracking down an old-school movie theater and an apartment on the same block, Oppewall was at a loss until she spotted the John Parkinson-designed California Bank building at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard. 

But turning the former bank building into a movie theater wasn't easy. For one thing, the owners forbid the production from nailing anything to the facade, forcing Oppewall to get creative. 

“What I ended up doing was designing the movie marquee as a freestanding triangle,” she says. “We shoved it up against the building, and then we built two pilasters on the back two legs that disappeared directly into the background of the building ... And we had to have a supporting pillar in the front, which we painted black. I specified that we had to always have some extras standing directly in front of it so you wouldn't see that it was actually standing on three legs.”

a
Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Gramercy Place

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Long before marijuana became legal in California, down-on-his-luck actor Matt Reynolds (Simon Baker) began his ultimately-fatal downward spiral during a pot bust at this Hollywood duplex.

Screen grab via Warner Bros./Google Street View

Boardner's

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The history of this Golden Era nightclub and restaurant stretches all the way back to 1927, and at the time of shooting very little had changed since its heyday as Hollywood hotspot. As Oppewall recounts, its period art deco interior required very little in the way of production design for a scene in which Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) gives Bud his badge and gun back.

“It feels like it's been remaindered by time,” she says. “Which is something all production designers dealing with history long for and embrace lovingly.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Mid-City

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Two “rising lieutenants” in the LA mob are gunned down in front of this spacious Mid-City residence built in 1908.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Victory Motel

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LA's dark underbelly is represented most vividly by this remote motel, which is where Captain Smith ambushes Bud and Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) at the end of the film. But don’t waste your time trying to find it—the structures were built from the ground up in the Inglewood Oil Field and subsequently demolished.

“To me it had all the correct metaphors, because it was about the city being sucked dry by some kind of corruption,” says Oppewall, who built the 1920s-style cottages after failing to find a suitable period motel for filming. “We kept that metaphor in the background with the oil derrick pumping the whole time.”

“We drove around for hours on the dirt roads in the oil fields, having gotten permission from the oil company to explore,” she says. “And finally found a flat place...[with] oil derricks behind it and trees surrounding it on two sides and a cliff on one side. It really was the perfect metaphor for a no-exit motel.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Nite Owl Cafe

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Exley didn't have to travel far from the precinct to reach the scene of this multiple homicide—the diner (a.k.a. JJ Sandwich Shop) is located right across the street from the film’s police station set at the Pacific Electric Building.

Though “a lot” of work had to be done on the interior to make it period-specific, one architectural feature in particular made it perfect for the film. “It happened to have, in the inside alley of the building right behind that restaurant, a bathroom that we could use for the murder scene,” says Oppewall.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Lovell Health House

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The Lovell Health House, a pioneering hillside abode designed by Richard Neutra, doubled as Pierce Patchett's (David Strathairn) luxurious home, whose modernist design represented a distinct change from Ellroy's novel.

“Curtis had been thinking that unlike what seemed to have been written in the Ellroy book, that the Strathairn character would have modern taste and live in a modern building,” she says. “And that place came to mind because all architectural historians, amateur and professional ... know about it.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Wilcox Avenue

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Lynn Bracken's seductive home/"office" feels tailor-made for the Veronica Lake lookalike, but Curtis originally mandated a “Spanish-style garden courtyard” apartment for the character. The film’s location manager was unable to secure one for filming, however, forcing Oppewall to “find it in a different kind of way.”

“I wanted something with drama, with a staircase and two stories,” she says. “Something that would let you understand just by the camera being in it what kind of a place she was running.”

After three months of searching and $75,000 worth of work that included constructing a portico-style porch for Bud and Lynn's rainy confrontation scene, Oppewall's set decorator secured the appropriate “sexy furniture” at a Palm Springs consignment store. 

Logistically, the location also worked beautifully for a key scene in which Lynn seduces Ed for a compromising photo shoot.

“The inside of the two rooms that we shot in the downstairs was really well and perfectly laid out for the scene with Sid Hudgens hiding in the closet behind the two-way mirror and photographing what goes on,” says Oppewall. “That was a stroke of luck. I had thought originally we would have to just figure out how to build that in.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Angelino Heights

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The house where Vincennes pumps boxer Leonard Bidwell (Robert Barry Fleming) for information is in hilly Angelino Heights, which also contains the spooky Victorian seen in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

Screen grab via Warner Bros./Google Street View

Bronson Avenue

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The rundown home where Exley and Vincennes arrest three men suspected of the Nite Owl massacre is located in a crumbling multi-family dwelling in East Hollywood. Judging from the latest images available on Google Street View, the years have not been kind.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Lincoln Heights

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Bud makes short work of a kidnapper at this spacious multi-family home in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Westlake

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Located on the eastern edge of Koreatown, this Westlake apartment building was the site of Exley's deadly shootout with the trio of escaped Nite Owl suspects.

Screen grab via Warner Bros./Google Street View

Frolic Room

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Vincennes' go-to meeting place is this iconic dive on Hollywood Boulevard, long rumored as one of Charles Bukowski's favorite imbibing spots. Due to its classic interior, only a minimal amount of updating was required, though Oppewall says the Pantages Theater next door required a bit more work to make it period-accurate.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Hollywood Center Motel

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This still-in-existence Sunset Boulevard motel—where Vincennes discovers the body of Matt Reynolds—was desirable for its “seedy” appearance and its location in the heart of Hollywood. 

“We didn't have to go chasing something in Sierra Madre,” says Oppewall. “There are older motels [all] around the city of LA, but it's always better if you can find an appropriate one in the area in which the story's actually written, and which some people might actually physically relate to.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Echo Park

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Bud makes a grisly discovery in the basement of this unassuming Echo Park home, where the mother of a murdered Rita Hayworth lookalike swears that a rat died behind the wall. She wasn't far off.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Formosa Cafe

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One might understandably assume that this recently-shuttered (soon-to-be-restored) West Hollywood establishment—where Ed mistakes the real Lana Turner for a call-girl lookalike— wouldn't have required a substantial period upgrade. But they would be wrong. 

“I had a five page, single-typed, single-lined list of everything that had to be done to that place to make it correct for the period,” says Oppewall. “And of course, it looks like we did nothing.”

Among the problems Oppewall listed: unpredictable neon; period-inappropriate street lamps and air conditioning units visible through the side windows; and signed photographs of movie stars that lawyers forced Oppewall to replace with “cleared, approved, legally-signed” versions.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

El Sereno

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This modest El Sereno residence with its sweeping front lawn is the home of Captain Dudley Smith, who gives Vincennes a brutal third-act surprise in the kitchen. RIP.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Los Angeles City Hall

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Bud and Lynn take their leave of the vice-ridden metropolis at the steps of Los Angeles City Hall (i.e. the center of corruption itself). The building of course worked well for the period on its own, but some digital trickery was required for the surrounding area.

“There was a lot that was incorrect for the period looking down that street,” Oppewall says of the final shot of Lynn's departing car. “What I did was I just stood there and photographed everything and pieced it all together and made notes and circles and suggestions, and we sent that through the digital effects department, and they essentially got rid of stuff that was wrong for the period digitally.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

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Crossroads of the World

Designer Robert Vincent Derrah's "pedestrian village" in Hollywood is the site of Sid Hudgens' (Danny DeVito) cluttered Hush-Hush office. According to Oppewall, renting a space in clear view of the complex's iconic tower was key.

“That involved walking up and down and banging on the doors and seeing who would be willing to vacate his or her premises for a week or so,” she says.

To keep the period illusion intact, Oppewall and her team installed a green hedge in front of a “mean-spirited” metal fence fronting Sunset Boulevard, which betrayed “a non-ending stream of contemporary cars.”

Crossroads of the World’s iconic tower, as seen from the exterior of Sid Hudgens’ office
Screen grab via Warner Bros.

Long Beach

Bud White (Russell Crowe) gives a domestic abuser a taste of his own medicine at this now extensively-remodeled house in suburban Long Beach.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Pacific Electric Building

“It's condos now, but then it was pretty much abandoned and inhabited only by the odd filmmaking company,” says Oppewall of the historic former headquarters of the Pacific Electric transit company (and later the Southern Pacific railroad).

“We shot the detective bureau and the interrogation rooms and the police chief's office and the office of the District Attorney [there],” she continued. “We managed to corral all eight floors of that building, and I found places that could work for all of those locations.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Liquor store

Bud first meets prostitute/future love interest Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) at this Midtown liquor store, which now stands vacant. Guess the vice squad shut ’em down.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

California Bank building

The scene of Jack Vincennes’ (Kevin Spacey) pot-bust photo op was one of the most difficult locations to find. Tasked with tracking down an old-school movie theater and an apartment on the same block, Oppewall was at a loss until she spotted the John Parkinson-designed California Bank building at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard. 

But turning the former bank building into a movie theater wasn't easy. For one thing, the owners forbid the production from nailing anything to the facade, forcing Oppewall to get creative. 

“What I ended up doing was designing the movie marquee as a freestanding triangle,” she says. “We shoved it up against the building, and then we built two pilasters on the back two legs that disappeared directly into the background of the building ... And we had to have a supporting pillar in the front, which we painted black. I specified that we had to always have some extras standing directly in front of it so you wouldn't see that it was actually standing on three legs.”

a
Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Gramercy Place

Long before marijuana became legal in California, down-on-his-luck actor Matt Reynolds (Simon Baker) began his ultimately-fatal downward spiral during a pot bust at this Hollywood duplex.

Screen grab via Warner Bros./Google Street View

Boardner's

The history of this Golden Era nightclub and restaurant stretches all the way back to 1927, and at the time of shooting very little had changed since its heyday as Hollywood hotspot. As Oppewall recounts, its period art deco interior required very little in the way of production design for a scene in which Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) gives Bud his badge and gun back.

“It feels like it's been remaindered by time,” she says. “Which is something all production designers dealing with history long for and embrace lovingly.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Mid-City

Two “rising lieutenants” in the LA mob are gunned down in front of this spacious Mid-City residence built in 1908.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Victory Motel

LA's dark underbelly is represented most vividly by this remote motel, which is where Captain Smith ambushes Bud and Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) at the end of the film. But don’t waste your time trying to find it—the structures were built from the ground up in the Inglewood Oil Field and subsequently demolished.

“To me it had all the correct metaphors, because it was about the city being sucked dry by some kind of corruption,” says Oppewall, who built the 1920s-style cottages after failing to find a suitable period motel for filming. “We kept that metaphor in the background with the oil derrick pumping the whole time.”

“We drove around for hours on the dirt roads in the oil fields, having gotten permission from the oil company to explore,” she says. “And finally found a flat place...[with] oil derricks behind it and trees surrounding it on two sides and a cliff on one side. It really was the perfect metaphor for a no-exit motel.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Nite Owl Cafe

Exley didn't have to travel far from the precinct to reach the scene of this multiple homicide—the diner (a.k.a. JJ Sandwich Shop) is located right across the street from the film’s police station set at the Pacific Electric Building.

Though “a lot” of work had to be done on the interior to make it period-specific, one architectural feature in particular made it perfect for the film. “It happened to have, in the inside alley of the building right behind that restaurant, a bathroom that we could use for the murder scene,” says Oppewall.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Lovell Health House

The Lovell Health House, a pioneering hillside abode designed by Richard Neutra, doubled as Pierce Patchett's (David Strathairn) luxurious home, whose modernist design represented a distinct change from Ellroy's novel.

“Curtis had been thinking that unlike what seemed to have been written in the Ellroy book, that the Strathairn character would have modern taste and live in a modern building,” she says. “And that place came to mind because all architectural historians, amateur and professional ... know about it.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Wilcox Avenue

Lynn Bracken's seductive home/"office" feels tailor-made for the Veronica Lake lookalike, but Curtis originally mandated a “Spanish-style garden courtyard” apartment for the character. The film’s location manager was unable to secure one for filming, however, forcing Oppewall to “find it in a different kind of way.”

“I wanted something with drama, with a staircase and two stories,” she says. “Something that would let you understand just by the camera being in it what kind of a place she was running.”

After three months of searching and $75,000 worth of work that included constructing a portico-style porch for Bud and Lynn's rainy confrontation scene, Oppewall's set decorator secured the appropriate “sexy furniture” at a Palm Springs consignment store. 

Logistically, the location also worked beautifully for a key scene in which Lynn seduces Ed for a compromising photo shoot.

“The inside of the two rooms that we shot in the downstairs was really well and perfectly laid out for the scene with Sid Hudgens hiding in the closet behind the two-way mirror and photographing what goes on,” says Oppewall. “That was a stroke of luck. I had thought originally we would have to just figure out how to build that in.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Angelino Heights

The house where Vincennes pumps boxer Leonard Bidwell (Robert Barry Fleming) for information is in hilly Angelino Heights, which also contains the spooky Victorian seen in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

Screen grab via Warner Bros./Google Street View

Bronson Avenue

The rundown home where Exley and Vincennes arrest three men suspected of the Nite Owl massacre is located in a crumbling multi-family dwelling in East Hollywood. Judging from the latest images available on Google Street View, the years have not been kind.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Lincoln Heights

Bud makes short work of a kidnapper at this spacious multi-family home in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Westlake

Located on the eastern edge of Koreatown, this Westlake apartment building was the site of Exley's deadly shootout with the trio of escaped Nite Owl suspects.

Screen grab via Warner Bros./Google Street View

Frolic Room

Vincennes' go-to meeting place is this iconic dive on Hollywood Boulevard, long rumored as one of Charles Bukowski's favorite imbibing spots. Due to its classic interior, only a minimal amount of updating was required, though Oppewall says the Pantages Theater next door required a bit more work to make it period-accurate.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures

Hollywood Center Motel

This still-in-existence Sunset Boulevard motel—where Vincennes discovers the body of Matt Reynolds—was desirable for its “seedy” appearance and its location in the heart of Hollywood. 

“We didn't have to go chasing something in Sierra Madre,” says Oppewall. “There are older motels [all] around the city of LA, but it's always better if you can find an appropriate one in the area in which the story's actually written, and which some people might actually physically relate to.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Echo Park

Bud makes a grisly discovery in the basement of this unassuming Echo Park home, where the mother of a murdered Rita Hayworth lookalike swears that a rat died behind the wall. She wasn't far off.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Formosa Cafe

One might understandably assume that this recently-shuttered (soon-to-be-restored) West Hollywood establishment—where Ed mistakes the real Lana Turner for a call-girl lookalike— wouldn't have required a substantial period upgrade. But they would be wrong. 

“I had a five page, single-typed, single-lined list of everything that had to be done to that place to make it correct for the period,” says Oppewall. “And of course, it looks like we did nothing.”

Among the problems Oppewall listed: unpredictable neon; period-inappropriate street lamps and air conditioning units visible through the side windows; and signed photographs of movie stars that lawyers forced Oppewall to replace with “cleared, approved, legally-signed” versions.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

El Sereno

This modest El Sereno residence with its sweeping front lawn is the home of Captain Dudley Smith, who gives Vincennes a brutal third-act surprise in the kitchen. RIP.

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View

Los Angeles City Hall

Bud and Lynn take their leave of the vice-ridden metropolis at the steps of Los Angeles City Hall (i.e. the center of corruption itself). The building of course worked well for the period on its own, but some digital trickery was required for the surrounding area.

“There was a lot that was incorrect for the period looking down that street,” Oppewall says of the final shot of Lynn's departing car. “What I did was I just stood there and photographed everything and pieced it all together and made notes and circles and suggestions, and we sent that through the digital effects department, and they essentially got rid of stuff that was wrong for the period digitally.”

Screen grab via Warner Bros. Pictures/Google Street View