I'm having trouble finding a movie scene on Google Maps.

[Crafter_Man]

Here is the car chase scene in Brewster McCloud (1970). It takes place in Houston, TX. I am curious what streets are shown from 0:46 through 1:06.

At 1:06 you can see the name of a street at the intersection (Fannin St.) and a sign pointing to the “Domed Stadium.” Fannin St. is a north-south street in Houston. The red muscle car is traveling on Fannin St., and then takes a left at that intersection. A few seconds later, a Trans Am travels through the same intersection on the east-west street, chasing the red muscle car.

I am curious where this intersection is. One problem is that I do not know the name of the east-west street; I only know the name of the north-south street (Fannin St.).

I looked at major roads that intersected Fannin St. on Google Maps, but none of them look like the movie scene. My best guess is the scene takes place at the intersection of Fannin St. and Old Spanish Trail. If so, I am amazed at how much it has changed.

[mikecurtis]

I found this discussion from 2007at houstonarchitecture .com

In the chase scene, the cars go airborne going over the railroad crossing on South Rice at Westpark. I worked in the Galleria area at that time, and I remember they closed South Rice all day so they could shoot that scene.

Pretty interesting from a historical standpoint is that the Holly Hall overpass over 288 used in the chase scene was built by 1969 or 1970 though the freeway didn’t open at that location until 1981. That’s a longer period of time for a structure to be built for a freeway not yet built than the “bridge to nowhere” stub that was built over the I-45 mainlanes downtown in 1962 as the ramp from I-10W to I-45S, but wasn’t completed and opened until 1972.

More locations I noticed in the film during the driving scenes not mentioned here:

Knight Rd. just north of the Loop

Knight Rd. and Fannin

Fannin and OST

Fannin and Holcombe

S. Main and Holcombe?

Main between Mecom Fountain and N. MacGregor (virtually unchanged stretch of road nearly 40 years later!)

Main at Alabama?

Main and Commerce

Main Street Viaduct

Ardmore and S. MacGregor

Old Columbia Tap RR bridge over Brays Bayou

N. MacGregor west of Almeda Rd.

Spur 527 (Then known as US 59)

South Loop mainlanes and feeder roads

Scott St. between Holmes and South Loop

Memorial Dr. between Houston Ave. and Shepherd

Sawyer flyover ramp onto Memorial

I’m probably missing some others. As bad and weird as the plot was, I’m thinking about seeing it again tommorow so I can see more old Houston and that car chase again.

[mixdenny]

I think you are right. At the start of the scene the red car goes through a 3-way intersection with a triangular island, that is just south on Fannin St. You can see the aerial photography of this area by going to Historic Aerials: Viewer and input the road names. They have aerials from as early as 1953 including 1966 and 1973.

Dennis