Introduction
This month, explore historic filming locations then and now as we take you on a virtual tour of Los Angeles area movie landmarks from the the historic Venice Beach neighborhood, to a long-forgotten tunnel under a busy street in Culver City.
Steve Martin - L.A. Story (1991)
The Plot
Steve Martin's character is a TV weatherman in Los Angeles, bored with life and the overall fakeness of L.A. His boredom soon becomes a full-fledged mid-life crisis and he finds himself in a relationship with a much younger woman (Sarah Jessica Parker).
Venice Beach: A Popular Filming Location For Over 100 Years
This Venice Beach filming location takes us to the heart of the neighborhood: The first block of Windward Avenue, directly adjacent to the beach. Developer Abbot Kinney's inspiration for his new neighborhood was Venice, Italy. He used plenty of arches in his buildings and even had a network of canals connecting all the different blocks in the area! Today, only a few of those canals survive, with the majority of them lasting only about 25 years until 1929.
The apartment building scenes with Sarah Jessica Parker were filmed at 23 Windward Avenue, a building with a very colorful mural facing the beach. Built in 1905, this is one of the few original Abbot Kinney buildings still standing and, amazingly, is NOT protected by any landmark status at the moment!
This very same part of Venice Beach was used as a filming location 70 years earlier in the Buster Keaton movie The High Sign and also in 1988 for the Sean Penn / Robert Duvall movie Colors.
Watch A Quick Preview Filming Location Video Now
Click the link below to watch a quick excerpt from the full Filming Locations Then and Now video:
L.A. Story - Venice Beach Filming Locations - Quick Preview Video
Member Exclusive - Full Then and Now Filming Locations Documentary Video and Photo Gallery
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L.A. Story - Steve Martin - Filming Locations Then and Now - Complete Documentary Video
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L.A. Story - Steve Martin - Complete Filming Locations Photo Gallery
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Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard (1925) - Part 1
The Plot
Farina is the youngest kid in the Gang and the older kids play tricks on him and generally don't want him hanging around, so he and his pet lamb set out on their own to wander around the area.
The Palms Elementary School - An Area Landmark
This first of three excerpts from the complete filming locations video is centered on the 3500 block of Motor Avenue in the Palms neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles. When Your Own Back Yard filmed here in 1925, the area still had a very rural, small-town look and feel to it, although the area had been settled for over 100 years.
The Palms Elementary School has been on it's current site at 3520 Motor Avenue since the late 1800s, though there have been several incarnations over the decades. The version standing in 1925 that we get a glimpse of in this Quick Preview filming locations video is still with us today.
The Other Landmark - 3570 Motor Avenue
The other filming location we visit is just a few steps away, the commercial building at 3570 Motor Avenue. This building was featured in quite a few movies in the 1920s and early 1930s, including:
- Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Dog Heaven (1927)
- Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Bouncing Babies (1929)
- Charley Chase - Midsummer Mush (1933)
Unfortunately, 3570 Motor Avenue was demolished in 2018 and a large apartment building is now occupying the site.
Watch The Quick Preview Video #1 Now
Take a look at the first of the three Quick Preview videos for Your Own Back Yard here:
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Quick Preview Filming Locations Video #1
See More of the Filming Locations Here
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Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Complete Filming Locations Photo Gallery
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Complete Filming Locations Video
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Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard (1925) - Part 2
The Plot
Farina and his pet lamb find themselves caught in a revolving door in Downtown Culver City. When they finally free themselves, they are quite dizzy and find themselves in the middle of the street.
A Complete 360 Degree View Of Downtown Culver City In 1925
To convey to the audience how dizzy Farina was, the filmmakers put him and his pet lamb on a movable platform and filmed them going around in a circle. And in doing so, they created an incredible time capsule of the downtown core of Culver City in 1925. In this scene, we see the following historical features and landmarks:
- The Culver Hotel. Built in 1923-24, the historic Culver Hotel has appeared in many movies and TV episodes, including movies by Laurel and Hardy and TV episodes of the 1980s cop show Hunter.
- The Adams Hotel: Another Culver City landmark, the Adams Hotel appeared in 1920s comedy movies by Laurel and Hardy to the popular 1970s TV series Charlie's Angels.
- The Pacific Electric Railway tracks running down the middle of Culver Blvd.
- The 3800 block of Main Street between Culver Blvd and Venice Blvd: The filming location landmark that appears in dozens of Hal Roach Studios comedies made in the 1920s and 1930s including the 1928 Max Davidson comedy The Boy Friend.
- 3853 Main Street: The filming location landmark also appears in dozens of Hal Roach Studios comedies made in the 1920s and 1930s including the 1933 Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie The Kid From Borneo.
Watch A Quick Preview Video Of This Scene
Take a look at the second of the three Quick Preview videos for Your Own Back Yard here:
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Quick Preview Filming Locations Video #2
See More of the Filming Locations Here
Current members can see all the filming locations, then and now, from this Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie by Logging into the site and clicking here:
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Complete Filming Locations Photo Gallery
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Complete Filming Locations Video
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Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard (1925) - Part 3
The Plot
A blind man has set himself up with a chair, a sign asking for donations and a donation cup. He leaves his post for a few minutes and along comes Farina, who takes a seat and promptly falls asleep. When he wakes up, he discovers that many generous people have dropped quite a bit of money in the donation cup, and he heads over to a nearby clothing store to buy a fancy new suit.
A Lost Tunnel In Culver City
The majority of this Quick Preview filming locations video takes place on the corner of Washington Blvd and Van Buren Place in downtown Culver City. This is where Farina falls asleep in the blind man's chair and is directly in front of the entrance to a pedestrian tunnel that used to run under Washington Blvd. Apparently, there was so much traffic in this spot back then that they built a tunnel so that pedestrians could safely get to the other side of the street!
Today, the tunnel is gone - or at least the entrance and exit are sealed - and both Washington Blvd and Van Buren Place on this block no longer exist either!
Watch An Excerpt From The Filming Locations Video
Take a look at the third of the three Quick Preview videos for Your Own Back Yard here:
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Quick Preview Filming Locations Video #3
See More of the Filming Locations Here
Current members can see all the filming locations, then and now, from this Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie by Logging into the site and clicking here:
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Complete Filming Locations Photo Gallery
Our Gang / The Little Rascals - Your Own Back Yard - Complete Filming Locations Video
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In case you missed it: My July 2026 featured filming locations then and now videos blog entry.
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