CREDITS L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, 1997 dir: Curtis Hanson Russell Crowe Guy Pearce Kevin Spacey Kim Basinger James Cromwell Danny DeVito David Strathairn

“Come to Los Angeles! The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, and the orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see.”

Along with Michael Mann's Heat, Curtis Hanson's thriller fifties-set thriller shows LA at its most stylish. Although it’s a period piece, the film was shot almost entirely on real locations around LA.

Only the decrepit ‘Victory Motel’, site of the final shoot-out, is a purpose-built set, constructed among the ‘nodding donkey’ wells of the Baldwin Hills oilfields near Culver City.

The Badge of Honor TV show, for which Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) acts as advisor, is obviously based on Dragnet, and similarly uses LA City Hall on the LAPD badge as its logo. It’s out of City Hall that the cops operate. The familiar pyramid-topped highrise can be seen at 200 North Spring Street, downtown.

The office of sleazy journo Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) beneath the illuminated spire and revolving globe of the Crossroads of the World, 6671 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a glorious thirties shopping mall designed as an ocean liner, complete with portholes, was the workplace of Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal.

Hudgens sets up the ‘movie premiere pot bust’ on a bungalow at 1714 Gramercy Place, west of Western Avenue just off Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The impressive-looking ‘El Cortez’ theater, where When Worlds Collide is premiering, is fictitious. An illuminated marquee was built onto the front of the imposing, but abandoned, bank building at 5620 Hollywood Boulevard.

The stylish home of pimp Pratchett: Lovell Health House, Los Feliz

Also in Hollywood is the bar where Captain Smith (James Cromwell) gives Bud White (Russell Crowe) his gun and badge back: Boardnerís, 1652 North Cherokee Avenue at Hollywood Boulevard (seen in Tim Burton's Ed Wood), Hollywood Homicide, with Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett and Leaving Las Vegas, with Nicolas Cage). Boardner's a great little bar with a fascinating history back to the ’30s – and it's my favourite bar in Hollywood.

To the west is ‘Nick’s Liquor Storeí’ where Bud White first sees Veronica Lake look-alike Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), which was recreated on Larchmont Boulevard, just south of the Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue.

The ‘Nite Owl Cafe’, site of the massacre, is in downtown LA: the J&J Sandwich Shop, 119 East 6th Street, opposite the Pacific Electric Building, 610 South Main Street, where Bud White dangles the terrified DA from a window.

The terraced home of Bracken’s high-class pimp is Richard Neutra’s 1929 Lovell House. Neutra’s masterpiece was built for vegetarian health freak Lovell (it’s known as the Lovell Health House). It’s a private residence, 4616 Dundee Drive, Los Feliz, below the Griffith Observatory, which you can see on the skyline in the movie.

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