L.A.-Going Beyond the Movie Tour
Every movie and TV fan knows that Los Angeles is loaded with so may places to visit that you can travel your own pilgrim’s trail for each and every genre and sub-category out there. There’s a major industry of professional tour operators ready to shuffle you into an open-top vehicle to visit the major sites, but most of these operators leave out two important locations for the true Screen Lover: Griffith Park and the Vasquez Rocks. Neither is difficult to reach, especially if you have access to a car.
Griffith Park encompasses 4300 acres of land on the slopes of Mount Hollywood between Hollywood and Glendale. The park’s main entrances are on its southern side, which is also the bottom of the slope. This lower area contains the largest parking lots, and there are free buses that will take you further into the park from there. If you want to drive into the park yourself, there are numerous parking spots along the edge of the roads, but you will have to pay to park in most of these spots.
Within its borders are dozens of places used in hundreds of movies and TV shows. Beyond that lots of other film history lurks within its borders. For example, Walt Disney’s Carolwood barn is located on the north side near the zoo. It was originally his estate’s workshop for the model railroad that inspired Disneyland. However, there are three key landmark locations every movie buff must see if you go.
To get to our first landmark, enter the park on Vermont Avenue. Past the parking areas the road winds it way up the slopes to the first landmark: The Mt. Hollywood Tunnel. Movie fans will recognize this popular location as the place where Biff tried to run down Marty McFly in Back to the Future 2, the entrance to Toon Town used by Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, a location in Jack Nicholson’s film noir classic Chinatown, and, more recently, used in Marvel’s Agent Carter TV show.
Passing through the tunnel, you come to a fork in the road. Left will take you the short distance up to the crest of the ridge, the location of the second landmark: Griffith Park Observatory. Don’t be surprised if this road is blocked to general access. The Observatory is a popular tourist destination and its parking lots fill up quick, which is why you should consider leaving your car at the park entrance and riding the shuttle even if it’s a bit more inconvenient. You can park along the road here and walk up-hill the last half-mile or so, but you will have to pay.
However you get there, it is worth the effort. The Observatory contains a free science museum, and for a fee you can take in one of the famous planetarium’s shows. There is The Café at the End of The Universe, and of course the obligatory giftshop; but it’s the views that are the main attraction. The entirety of Los Angeles sprawls at your feet, while to the north west you can see the peak of Mount Hollywood and the famous Hollywood sign.
As a filming location the observatory was a key location in the climax of James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause. It is so iconic that there is a monument to Dean along the entrance promenade. Fans will recognize the observatory as the opening location of The Terminator where 80’s punk Bill Paxton lost his heart to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Model 101. The exact spot has been remodeled, but the coin operated telescopes are still there along the western edge of the promenade.
Going back to the fork in the road, if you turn to the right up Mount Hollywood Road you can visit the iconic sign, although again access may be blocked to traffic. Afterwards, head downslope to the park entrance. From Vermont Avenue you need to head west on Franklin Avenue about a mile and a half, then turn north onto Canyon Road. This road winds through a residential neighborhood to the extreme southwestern corner of Griffith Park, and that is where we find the third key location: Bronson Canyon and Cave. This narrow rocky valley was a quarry about a hundred years ago. It was the mining company that created the “cave” at one end, which is really just a short tunnel through a rocky outcrop. To get there from the parking lots on Canyon Road requires a half-mile hike in each direction as access is closed to vehicles.
The canyon was first made famous as a shooting location for numerous westerns in the 1930’s, but really came into its own as a popular location for B-movie sci-fi and horror films in the 1950’s. Actor Charles Bronson, who made many westerns in his early career, is said to have taken his screen name from the canyon. Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will recognize it as the site of such cinematic disasters as Teenager’s From Outer-Space, Robot Monster, It Conquered The World, and Eegah! But it isn’t just low budget bad movies; Hollywood blockbusters, including Invasion of The Body Snatchers, The Searchers, Star Trek VI, and The Scorpion King filmed here.
As popular as it is for movies, it’s even more popular as a location for TV shows. Sharp-eyed fans may recognize the western portal as the entrance to the Bat Cave in the 1960’s Batman TV series. Other popular shows to film here include the first five Star Trek series, Twin Peaks, The A-Team, The Monkees, Little House on the Prairie, Monk, and The Dukes of Hazzard.
The attraction of Bronson Canyon is easy to see. It is close to the studios, and its rocky landscape provides a rugged stereotypical desert/old west location; but that’s not the only place with such qualifications. Just to the north of Griffith Park on the other side of Mount Hollywood lies the San Fernando Valley, or just “the Valley” as the locals call it. This is where Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers Studios are located and can rightly be considered the heart of the movie and TV industry. If you drive north across the valley on “the five” freeway (Interstate 5), you will come to the town of Santa Clarita, the starting point for our next adventure: The Vasquez Rocks.
Unless you find a tour company to take you, you will need a car to get there. Much depends on the capricious L.A. traffic, but driving from Hollywood to Santa Clarita takes between 45 minutes to an hour. From there it is an additional 20 minutes to the Vasquez Rocks; roughly an hour and a half total. This seems like a long way, which is undoubtedly why so few travelers make the journey. However, if you consider the nature of L.A. traffic it really isn’t that far at all. It can easily take an hour to drive the short distance from the Chinese Theater to Santa Monica, for example. Traffic just goes with the territory. On the weekday afternoon I visited I counted 5 cars total in the park, so in contrast to the crowds in Hollywood it seems like you have the Vasquez Rocks to yourself.
The public park has a visitor center with interesting exhibits about the desert environment and the history of the area, as well as restrooms and of course, a gift-shop. There is parking available in several areas, but the most easily accessible is at the visitor’s center. From there a rough dirt road leads to a second parking area adjacent to the most famous of the rock outcrops. Vasquez is near the edge of the Mohave Desert, and it has a stark desert beauty which would make it worth a visit even if you weren’t a movie fan.
As soon as you see them, the Vasquez Rocks are instantly recognizable from dozens of movies and TV shows. This location is widely known to Star Trek fans as the location where Captain Kirk fought the lizard-like Gorn in the episode Arena. But Star Trek is far from the only production to film here. Loads of westerns including an early John Wayne film Broken Arrow shot here, as well as Charlton Heston’s Planet of The Apes. Comedy fans will recognize locations used in Blazing Saddles, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, and Little Miss Sunshine. TV shows filmed here include Star Trek and its spin-offs: Next Generation, Enterprise, and Voyager, Disney’s Zorro, The A-Team, MacGyver, The Wild Wild West, NCIS, Friends, and The Big Bang Theory.
If you venture to Vasquez, there are some very nice places to eat in Santa Clarita, plus the Magic Mountain theme park is near-by. There are plenty of other attractions in the valley, such as the off-beat Valley Relics museum which holds a vast collection of California kitsch, movie memorabilia, and famous cars; and of course there are the aforementioned movie studios.
Whatever your interests, you could easily spend a whole day in the valley, then end it with a sunset cruise along Mulholland drive on your way back. This road has certainly appeared in films, but the real attraction is taking in the spectacular views of both the city and the valley. Mulholland drive runs from Glendale westward along the ridge line of the Santa Monica mountains that separate the valley from L.A. It runs past Griffith Park’s northern edge, and around Mt. Hollywood offering views to both sides. As the sun sets and lights come on below, it is a scene out of any one of a thousand movies.
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