Locations?


The mall looks like Topanga Plaza. It is hard to tell where the house is, there are so many cul de sacs built into the sides of hills. Given the fact that the houses and landscaping look so new (1966) I would think the westernmost part of West Hills or the older part of Calabasas? Woodland Hills, Encino and Tarzana were already built out by then.

I don't know what those houses were worth in 1966 but most houses like that in nice hilly areas of the valley go for $800,000 now. The typical inflation calculator doesn't work well with California real estate.

I think this is a great comedy. It is one of my favorite 1960s films.

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The mall was definitely Topanga Plaza. We encountered the film company there the day they were shooting the scene with Reynolds and Emmaline Henry (and the distinctive "T" logo is visible in a shot or two).

I mentioned on another thread that I also encountered them at Matador Bowl when they were shooting scenes with Van Dyke and Robards, and we came upon them as well at a bank on, if memory serves, Ventura Blvd. They did a lot of location work around the valley for the film, and it seemed like hardly a week went by we didn't bump into them somewhere.

Not sure about the house. West Hills is a reasonable possibility, although it always seemed to me that it might have been Porter Ranch, a few miles to the northeast, where development had boomed in the mid-60's (and the landscaping was not yet mature). We had friends in that neighborhood and the streets and views looked very similar.

Agree with you about the film. Norman Lear's cynical and sometimes savage humor was very much in evidence, just as it was a few years later in his other edgy collaboration with Van Dyke, "Cold Turkey."


Poe! You are...avenged!

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Great post/anecdote! I really enjoyed it.

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I appreciate your taking the time to say so. Thanks much.


Poe! You are...avenged!

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Now I think the neighborhood looks kind of like La Canada Flintridge on the other side of the Valley.

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Hmm. Sounds like a very good possibility. It's certainly got the appropriate topography.


Poe! You are...avenged!

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Richard's dingbat apartment (1300 block) looks like West L.A. near the VA and University High School. Across the street is a little pre-war clapboard bungalow such as used to exist around there.

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