007 Travelogue: Los Angeles, Malibu, Palm Springs (USA) 2023

Bond locations of this 007 Travelogue:

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

Playboy Mansion

The Beverly Hills Hotel

Elrod House, Palm Springs

Tiffany Case’s house, where Plenty O’Toole is found dead, Palm Springs

Monday 3rd of July 2023 LOS ANGELES

Our third time in the USA was focused on the west coast and Los Angeles. Finnair‘s direct flight from Helsinki to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) takes 11 hours and 5 minutes according to the schedule. With the tailwind blowing, we arrived ahead of schedule, but since there was still a previous plane at the end of the tube, we didn’t get to the terminal “until” on schedule.

LAX airport is the first Bond destination on this 007 trip. Bond (Sean Connery) flies here from Frankfurt on a Lufthansa plane in “Diamonds Are Forever” (1971) and in 1979 Bond visits the airport portrayed by Roger Moore in “Moonraker“.

“Bond came down the corridor from the 747 at Los Angeles Airport feeling a familiar sense of jet-lagged irritation that he had to relive half a day of his life. Still, at least nobody had pushed him out of the aeroplane this time, and the cold buffet in first class had been a welcome change from the usual overheated plastic food made particularly unbearable by the bestowal of fatuous titles in gastronomic French. There has even been a well-chilled bottle of Puligny-Montrachet rejoicing the eye with the 1971 printed on its damp label.”

Christopher Wood: “James Bond and Moonraker” (1979) novelization

After receiving our luggage and getting through the customs formalities rather quickly, the first challenge was to find the Hertz car rental shuttle bus stop. After our discovery, we traveled by bus to the car rental office, located a few kilometers away from the airport itself.

At the rental office we found out that we were Gold Members and were able to choose our rental car from the lineup. The choice was quite difficult, when the inside of many cars smelled of cannabis or something otherwise special, or the car had a dent or something else. In the end we settled on the 2022 Nissan Maxima, which turned out to be a brilliant choice. Bond also rents a car from Hertz in Las Vegas in the movie “Diamonds Are Forever“, but that’s where we’ll get to later on in this journey.

We bravely went among the millions of other cars (there are about four million cars in LA, or about one car per inhabitant). We blended in well with the others and finally found ourselves in Santa Monica and the Shore Hotel, located at 1515 Ocean Avenue. A few notes to the drivers outside of States about driving in the USA: You can turn right at traffic lights, even if the lights are red (unless it is specifically prohibited). There are several stop signs in urban areas and at intersections of four roads for those coming from all directions. In this case, the first person to come to the intersection is also allowed to continue first (there is no “wait for a vehicle coming from the right” rule). At intersections, if the traffic lights are flashing yellow, one car passes at a time, regardless of which direction it’s coming from (there is no right-first rule here either).

Accommodation: Shore Hotel

Address: 1515 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica, California, USA

Roomtype: Two Doubles Garden View

Price: $ 587,96 / 2 nights / 3 persons (Coastal Rate)

Booking: via @- hotels

In the evening and the next morning, we got to know the surroundings of Ocean Avenue, Palisades Park and the Santa Monica Pier, where e.g. Pierce Brosnan‘s film “Nomads” (1986) was shot.

“Nomads” is a 1986 American horror film written and directed by John McTiernan, adapted from the novel of the same name by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Lesley-Anne Down and Anna Maria Monticelli. The story involves a French anthropologist, an expert on nomads. He stumbles across a group of urban Nomads who turn out to be more than he expected. One of the shooting locations of the film is the Santa Monica Pier.

Tuesday 4th of July 2023 MALIBU / LOS ANGELES

For us, the celebration of Independence Day in the United States started with a car trip to Malibu, where we visited e.g. in front of Pierce Brosnan’s home “Orchid House”, at Broad Beach Road 3118. The men from the security bureau were ready in front of Brosnan’s house, when a week earlier an uninvited guest had visited Brosnan’s yard…

We drove past Westward Beach and The Sunset Restaurant which is seen in Brosnan’s movie “Some Kind of Beautiful” / “How to Make Love Like an Englishman“, 2014).

From Malibu we headed to Beverly Hills and visited e.g. one “The Bold and the Beautiful” TV series filming location: Yahnew Hebrew Academy is a Forrester Creations exterior (at 5353 West 3rd Street).

We drove past the Playboy Mansion (10236 Charing Cross Road), where Bond is visiting in Raymond Benson‘s short story “Midsummer Night’s Doom” (1999). We couldn’t get any further than the gate while the construction and renovation work commissioned by the new owner was underway 🙂

“Hugh Hefner’s magnificent Playboy Mansion West is located in the exclusive Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles, adjacent to Bel Air, Beverly Hills, U.C.L.A. and the Los Angeles Country Club. Bond drove his Jaguar XK8 coupe to the imposing wrought iron gate at the bottom of a tree-lined drive off of Sunset Boulevard, and was greeted by a voice in a large rock on the driver’s side. Bond provided his credentials, and the gate opened slowly. He drove through and was treated to a spectacular view of a marble frieze, a replica of a painting by Guido Reni displayed in the Rospigiosi Palace in Rome. The car made its way up the steep, curving drive that was lined with redwood trees and juniper hedges, ending at a circular drive with an ornate, flower-ringed marble fountain in the centre. Busy valets signaled for Bond to stop. Even though he had arrived unfashionably early, there was already a queue of cars waiting to be parked. Bond entrusted the Jaguar to the boy and took a moment to gaze at the mansion’s front, a marvelous stone edifice in a 16^th Century Perpendicular Gothic Style. Bond thought there might be some Scottish influence as well.”

Raymond Benson: “Midsummer Night’s Doom” (1999)

We also visited 1127 21st street, where one of the houses registered in George Lazenby‘s name is located.

Afterwards, we went for refreshments at the famous Beverly Hills Hotel, also familiar to Bond from Ian Fleming‘s book “Diamonds are Forever“ (1956). More about the Beverly Hills hotel in our story here.

“Then they were rolling easily along Sunset Boulevard between the palm trees and the emerald lawns, the dust-streaked Studillac looking incongruous among the glistening Corvettes and Jaguars, and finally, towards evening, they were sitting in the dark, cool bar of the Beverley Hills Hotel, and there were new suitcases in the lobby and brand new Hollywood clothes and even Bond’s battle-scarred face didn’t mean they hadn’t all just finished work at the studios.

There was a telephone on the table beside their Martinis. Felix Leiter finished talking to New York for the fourth time since their arrival.”

Ian Fleming: “Diamonds Are Forever” (1956)

We also visited cemeteries. Our first destination was Hollywood Forever, where e.g. Chris Cornell, who sang the theme song “You Know My Name” from the movie “Casino Royale” (2006), and Burt Reynolds, the star of action movies who was also considered Bond in the 1970s are buried. Reynolds also starred with Roger Moore in “Cannonball Run” (1981). In this film, Moore parodies himself and Bond and drives an Aston Martin, which he never did in the 007 films. It is said that Aston Martin DB5, driven by Roger Moore, is the same Aston Martin used in “Goldfinger” (1964) when it was driven by Sean Connery. More cemeteries followed when we got back to LA.

Wednesday 5th of July 2023 PALM SPRINGS

After checking out of the Shore Hotel, we drove the car towards Palm Springs, a ride of a couple hours (120 miles). We will return to LA at the end of our trip, so more pictures, e.g. from the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign in later travelogues. In Palm Springs we were faced with quite a bit of heat when the thermometer rose above +41 degrees Celsius. We stopped by the Marilyn Monroe statue and the shooting locations of “Diamonds are Forever” (1971).

Tiffany Case‘s (Jill St. John) American apartment in Las Vegas, where Plenty O’Toole (Lana Wood) is found dead in the pool, is actually at 515 West Via Lola in Palm Springs. The house in question was previously owned by actor Kirk Douglas.

Millionaire Willard Whyte’s (Jimmy Dean) summer home is where Bond gets punched and kicked by Bambi (Lola Larson) and Thumper (Trina Parks) and nearly drowns in a swimming pool. (actually this is the Elrod House, a residence in Palm Springs designed by American architect John Lautner and constructed in 1968). This is where SPECTRE agent Albert R. “Bert” Saxby (Bruce Cabot) almost shoots Bond later while 007 rescues Whyte.

Production designer Ken Adam said the Elrod House was perfect for this film: “It’s like I planned it. I don’t have to do anything.”

Elvis Presley‘s honeymoon hideaway is located in Palm Springs, at 1350 Ladera Cir. This is the house where Elvis and Priscilla Presley celebrated their honeymoon, known as the “House of Tomorrow”. The 4,695-square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bathroom structure sports a unique profile made up of four circular sections under a dramatically angular sloped roof, designed by modernist architect William Krisel, who was known for his innovative tract housing.

We visited the place, but Elvis had left the building… 🙂

The movie “Don’t Worry Darling” (2022) is a psychological thriller film that takes place in a 1950’s fictional California town called Victory. It was filmed in Palm Springs, and one of the filming location is Canyon View Estates. This is where Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) live in the film. Their residence was on a circular cul-de-sac with their neighbors’ houses facing inwards on the perimeter. For filming at this location, every driveway had to be cleared for blocks and blocks of non-period elements. This affected the daily routine of hundreds of people and property owners.

Our hotel was the wonderful little hotel Inn at Palm Springs, the swimming pool of which was great for cooling off after a hot day.

Accommodation: Inn at Palm Springs

Address: 2525 North Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, California, USA

Roomtype: One Single Room with Two Doubles

Price: $ 164,40 / night / 3 persons

Booking: via booking.com

We also visited the Palm Springs Air Museum which had wonderful airplanes from many different decades on display.

The drive between Los Angeles / Palm Springs and Las Vegas may seem a bit long and tedious, but there are many interesting stops along the way provided there is time to spare.

The next day, our travel destination will be the legendary Las Vegas along with many more locations from the movie “Diamonds are Forever“. Stay tuned!

See more 007 TRAVELOGUES here