Movies filmed on a location you know well

Ojai is now the land of the wealthy LA weekend trippers and the pretend-wealth Instagram influencers.

Frankly Rancho Cucamunga just sounds funny.

It’s true, it’s got the K sounds comedy demands.

Thanks all for the Ojai update. Amazing the changes that happen in 50 years. :wink:

The Homer and Jethro parody of “The Battle of New Orleans” was called "The Battle of Kookamonga - different spelling, same pronunciation.

I can’t say that I know this location well, but I was in Miami Beach last week and stayed at the same hotel where James Bond caught Auric Goldfinger cheating at gin. The pool area where the action takes place has been completely rebuilt and remodeled, but most off the rest is still recognizable. I’m watching the movie now, and I did spot one thing I never noticed before. The tower where Jill is spying on Goldfinger is significantly curved, but when Bond grabs the maid’s key and lets himself into Goldfinger’s room, the hallway is dead straight.

I mentioned Fort Knox above as the filming location for Stripes. Of course it’s also famously the location for the end of Goldfinger. I was there decades later but some of it was recognizable. Certainly the gold depository was the same. The big terrain model Goldfinger used was on display at the Patton Museum.

The exterior of Fort Knox is seen only in long shots. All scenes inside the compound were shot using a replica in England.

The interior was pure fantasy. The production designer (Ken Adams, IIRC) was told to create “a cathedral of gold.”

Didn’t they also shoot a scene on a highway just outside of Fort Knox that was lined with gas stations and fast food places (including an old-school KFC)?

US Hwy 31W runs along the edge of the Army fort and very near the Bullion Depository. Just a half mile south on that highway is pretty much Fast Food Row. You can see it on Google Maps.

Yep, Felix Leitner is having a KFC snack when they get the signal from Bond’s tracking transmitter:

“He’s on the move! Five’ll get you ten it’s either a drink or a dame.”

(Except it’s not Bond; it’s the Mafioso with the “pressing engagement.”)

I knew about Colonel Sanders from having spent summer vacations in West Virginia. He had yet to arrive in Minnesota at the time I saw the movie.