Body Double | 1984

Brian de Palma recycles more Hitchcock plots – and misogyny – in a disturbing and disturbed thriller set in a sleazy, seamy Los Angeles.

The film opens at the Tail ’o’ the Pup, which stood at 329 San Vicente Boulevard, midtown, the hotdog stand that looks like, well, a hotdog. You can see the famous landmark in Steve Martin satire L.A. Story. With the respect Los Angeles usually shows to its classic landmarks, the famed landmark has recently (early 2006) closed. There are plans for it to reopen at a new location.

The ‘Cascade Theater’, where struggling actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) auditions and meets Sam (Gregg Henry), was the Callboard Theater, 8451 Melrose Place near Orlando Avenue/La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood (there's a clue in the fact that the frontage clearly reads ‘Callboard’).

Scully shops at Los Angeles landmark Farmers’ Market, 6333 West 3rd Street at Fairfax Avenue, and drinks in Barney's Beanery, 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard, a venerable West Hollywood hangout – Jean Harlow allegedly picked up men here, and it’s where Jim Morrison (Val Kilmer) pees against the bar in Oliver Stone’s The Doors.

The bizarre home-on-a-stalk that Scully temporarily occupies is architect John Lautner’s Chemosphere House, 3105 Torreyson Place, off Mulholland Drive, in the Hollywood Hills. From here, Wasson spies on Gloria (Deborah Shelton) in her house in the hills on Miller Drive. The similar domed glass house in Charlie's Angels, by the way, is a studio set modelled on the Chemosphere.

Gloria buys expensive undies on Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills – underneath all the swish dressing, ‘Bellini’s’ is the Louis Vuitton luggage store in the Rodeo Collection, the exclusive mall at 421 North Rodeo Drive.

Scully takes Holly (Melanie Griffith) to celeb hangout, Spago’s Restaurant, 1114 Horn Avenue, which overlooked West Hollywood, but closed in 2001.

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