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Jaws Film Locations: Part 3

Before we get to the exciting conclusion of this series of posts, I want to take a minute to give you a lesson in Location Stalking 101.

Let's say you want to find the house from Home Alone.  This is an easy one, a simple google search will lead you to 671 Lincoln Ave.  Winnetka, Illinois.  See:


There are times when the internet has no clues for you.  Maybe you can find photos of the place but no address.  This was the problem I was faced with years ago when I was looking for Rushmore locations.  In this situation your best bet is paying attention to address numbers, street signs, and landmarks.  I found the Barber Shop from Rushmore and the Pawn Shop from Pulp Fiction based on the washateria across the street (Rushmore) and the address numbers (Pulp Fiction).  Google street siew is also an amazing tool to make sure the address from the internet is correct, or to see if the location still exist (In the case of Pulp Fiction, most are gone).  Finding Chief Brodys' house was by far the most challenging location I have ever tried to find.

Since Jaws is such a famous film, I assumed that it would be a piece of cake to find the film locations.  There are a bunch of sites devoted to the film, pictures and videos of the locations, but no addresses.  I was on Google street view so much  when I was looking for Brody's walk through town that when I was on the street I knew where everything was.

The best clue I had for finding his house was this description:

Out of Oak Bluffs, I trekked north on Commercial Ave., 
then along the coast on Highland Rd. About 15 minutes later, 
I rounded a corner on the northwest point of East Chop, 
and there it was Chief Brody's house.

Using Google maps, I narrowed it down to this area:


I drove this area in street view for longer than I'd like to admit looking for the house.

Let me remind you how it looked in the film:


Would you believe me if I told you this was it?


Don't believe me?  Here is the proof.  Chief Brody leaving.


Look at the houses he is driving towards.  Here they are now.


Yup, some genius remodeled the house.  Which is why all of these are street view pictures, I didn't waste my time seeking it out when I realized it was unrecognizable.  

This is one thing I don't understand, wasn't the fact that this house was used in the movie Jaws a selling point?  There's no way these people bought the house not knowing this, I'm sure they had to pay extra because of it.  The Full House is being sold for 3 million more dollars than the houses around it, because it's "The" Full House.

Walt Disney's Carolwood home, Jayne Mansfield's Pink Palace, Rudolph Valentino's home, why buy a famous piece or real estate only to  tear it down?  I'll never understand it.  




















Comments

  1. Michael Broggie told me that the guy who bought Walt Disney's Carolwood home had planned on keeping it the same when he purchased the property, but the amount of lead paint along with the new owner having small kids made it impossible to keep and inhabit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are you kidding? I just walked down there. I work at Martha's Vinyard hospital and I could not figure out which house it was. Are you sure? The porch scene "Michael, get out of the boat" looks like it could have been shot from the nest house down.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Went back aqain.. you're right! Good work. I love this stuff. I can't believe they would remodel that house. It should have been a registered landmark. Of course this isn't really Amnity either... If you ever come back There's a blue hulled boat in Manempsha harbor that was in the scene where the Orca leaves. It's still there!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Guido- Awesome. I'll have to check that out.

    ReplyDelete

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