CREDITS BASIC INSTINCT, 1966 dir: Paul Verhoeven Sharon Stone Michael Douglas Jeanne Tripplehorn George Dzundza

By wrapping a potentially interesting idea (role-reversal serial killer movie) in a Hitchcock pastiche, Paul Verhoeven ís movie comes over as a confused piece of homophobic misogyny. Its brazenly melodramatic style and lush score make it a guilty pleasure, nevertheless.

The director chooses a Vertigo-esque San Francisco, with the sexually profligate Sharon Stone sporting the inappropriate Hitch uniform of sexual repression, all tightly-clenched hair and severe grey suit.

The apartment of Det Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) – where even the staircase is modelled on that of the belltower in Vertigo – is 1158 Montgomery Street.

After grilling writer Catherine Tramell (Stone) in the filmís most notorious scene, teetotal Curran decides to desert the Evian at Tosca, 242 Columbus Avenue, a pricey media personsí hangout (this is obviously a well paid police force).

The Police HQ where Stone does for knickers what Clark Gable did for vests, filmed at Warnersí studio in Hollywood, as did Johnny Bozís churchified rock club – a set based on NYCís Limelight Club.

The ëStetson Barí, though, is real. Itís Raw Hide II, 280 Seventh Street, south of Market, a lesbian C&W bar in San Fran. The exterior, and the diner next door, were false fronts constructed in a deserted alley beneath the Transbay Terminal Deck, Mission Street at First Street.

Tramellís luxurious town house is 2930 Vallejo Street at Baker Street, east of the Presidio in upscale Pacific Heights.

The ëSalinas Medical Centerí is Rohnert Park Healthcare Center, 1450 Medical Center Drive; and at there was filming at the Dominican College in Marin County. Det Curran tails Tramell to Petaluma (the northern Californian town where George Lucas filmed American Graffiti). Tramell is visiting murderer Hazel Dobkins (Dorothy Malone), at 26 Liberty Street, opposite St Vincent Church.

Back in San Francisco, the car chase filmed up Kearney Streetís steep sidewalk steps on Telegraph Hill.

Out of town, Tramellís swish ëStinsoní pad actually filmed south of San Fran at a beachfront estate on a rocky bluff, on Spindrift Road, Carmel Highlands (which is why it seems to be reached via the Bixby Bridge on Highway 1, Californiaís Big Sur coastline). The plush home, on the same road as Clint Eastwoodís place in Play Misty For Me, is not visible from the street, but you can visit Garrapatta State Beach, Route 1 about eight miles to the south, where the beach scenes filmed.

The climax, with Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn) taking the bullet, filmed at 2201 Broadway, Oakland, just over the Bay Bridge from San Francisco.