Meet the Fockers on location Part 11

Plastic pink flamingos at the front steps.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 10

Here's a scenic view of the Focker residence from the other side of the lagoon.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 9

This folk-art sculpture with a large "appendage" was located in the garden at the circle drive in front of the house. It doesn't really appear in the movie. The screen capture from above is from the blooper reel.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 8

When I saw the boat in the middle of the lagoon, I thought it would be featured somehow with the characters on board. However, it turns up only in the background in a couple of shots

Meet the Fockers on location Part 7

Had a hunch that this straw umbrella shade was a movie prop too. Sure enough, it was.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 6

I took a picture of the alligator mailbox (or is it a crocodile?) figuring it was a movie prop and might show up in the movie. And sure enough it received some camera time.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 5

The Queen Anne house is normally painted white with red trim. For the movie the house was painted brown, but as you can see, only the sides that they were filming from. The first two shots are photographed from two different angles. The bottom photo is a close-up where the two different sides meet.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 4

Wandering around the property I saw these pink outdoor chairs and table. I took a photograph of them not thinking too much about it. It wasn't until months later when the movie came out that I discovered that Barbra sat in one of them!

Meet the Fockers on location Part 3

The Focker house.

Meet the Fockers on location Part 2

Image of the Focker sign shown briefly in the movie. This is a close-up similiar to the picture I posted last August.

On location with Meet the Fockers

The Focker house in Meet the Fockers is actually the Queen Anne Cottage located at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, California (did you get all that?). My friend Robin and I visited the location in June 2004 (to explore the botanical gardens only- honest). Who knew by coincidence that they were filming a Barbra Streisand film at the time? What luck!
Just ignore the part about no access to the Focker house. We did.

Meet the Fockers

This is the daily shooting schedule board located at the front of Universal Studios. Meet the Fockers was in high gear in June 2004. Took the tour that day and the tram did drive by stage 25- from the outside only with the doors closed. No shooting was scheduled on that day. The plants used for the sets were all placed outside the sound stage along the wall to get some sunlight.

The Barbra Streisand Special

I was thrilled when our local radio station aired this special and even advertised in our local newspaper. There wasn't anything earth shattering revealed in the special. You'll notice in the fine print at the bottom that they mention The Main Event coming soon- even though the special in our area didn't air until June 24. At the time, the local paper was a weekly and printed on Thursdays only.
I didn't really care for her hair in this photo. The afro had grown at little too big.

Contest time

I wonder who won this contest.
I remember For Pete's Sake being promoted on TV that summer. When school was out for the summer, I would watch game shows on television all day. Between the three channels, you had at least one game show airing for a good part of the day. I would watch TV all day long until my mom turned it off and made me go outside and play. At the end of the program during credits, they would show the title card for For Pete's Sake and the voice-over would talk about the movie "promotional consideration given by . . . ." I don't remember the specific game shows, but I do remember it happening repeatedly.
I had previously seen The Way We Were earlier that year (or possibly the previous fall) so I knew who Barbra Streisand was. I had even bought the 45 single. This movie looked interesting (at least to a 13 year old). Our town at the time was slow getting new releases. The movie had to play everywhere else before it reached us. And by that time it would, it would be a scratchy print.
But getting back to the contest, you never hear about the winner- or the lucky guests that got to attend. So if any of you are out there, raise your hand.
Now if they would only have a similiar contest for Little Fockers.

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 7

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 6

I had to sit the camera on the sidewalk to get this shot.

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 5

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 4

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 3

When I got to the aparment building, there was a couple with their child outside. (Not the guy to the right, that's Kevin- a fellow Barbra fan there with me). I was feverishly taking photos of the building. I explained to the couple that I was taking pictures because a movie was shot here years ago. The guy said, "Yeah, For Pete's Sake!". He was too young to remember the movie, so I was pleasantly surprised he knew about it. He said everybody in the building knew about it.

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 2

Finding locations like Henrietta and Pete's apartment takes a little research. In this case, I was pretty sure they actually filmed in the Brooklyn borough. I could tell from watching the movie that they filmed on a street with brownstones on one side and a park on the other.

Living in South Florida, it's not difficult to find someone who grew up in New York. I took the photos of these scenes to work and asked around. Everyone agreed that it had to be Prospsect Park (the wall was a give-away). There's only one street where you have townhomes on one side with the park on the other- Prospect Park West (again, this is coming from the N.Y.'ers).

So it was only a matter of taking the subway to the Grand Army Plaza stop and start walking. I don't remember the exact cross street but it was near 4th or 5th street. And low and behold, there it was.

For Pete's Sake filming locations Part 1

In the director's commentary for the movie, Peter Yates mentions a few years after shooting For Pete's Sake he came back to the same area to film another movie. While there he claimed he couldn't find the apartment used in FPS. I got the impression from him that maybe the building had been torn down and the property redeveloped.

Well it only took me about 10 minutes of walking through Brooklyn to find it- still standing and in excellent shape.

Barbra's resume

It's not her real resume. As best I recall, this "resume" was included with a Barbra photo I ordered back in the '70s. I didn't belong to her fan club. By the time I became a fan I don't think it existed anymore. Regardless, even as a new fan I could see obvious omissions.

This Week's Movies

From TV Guide magazine.