Wild Things (1998) Filming Locations

[Paul Veres]

Just watched this movie which was great except for maybe just one too many twists at the end. Was skimming through locations and searched on our forum and it seems there is no designated thread. Without trying to do a full guide yet, here is a couple of things to start.

A location I loved was the Van Ryan mansion, it's just a really grand home:

In a scene where upset Kelly is walking from the dock back into the home with her mother, you can catch a glimpse of tall port cranes, which makes the bridge and road behind the ladies the MacArthur causeway, and along with the curving of the house lot's edge and relative distance puts it into the only two options possible: southeast ends of either Palm or Star islands.

There is only one home there matching the overall layout and architecture, but earlier we can also catch the house number on the gate - 40:

Which seals the deal for 40 E Star Island Dr. A beautiful home built in 1925 and overlooking Miami Beach, it is currently owned by a Turkey-born tycoon.

 

Here is a location which is a mystery. @airtommy brought up that scene by the end of the movie in a different thread. Could it be Virginia Key or Crandon beach? One of these was certainly used in the movie (Suzie murder and investigation), easily identifiable by this structure:

Though there was trellis added into the columns since then, which was a good beautification for this pavilion, it looked abandoned in the movie. Both Virginia and Crandon have these:

So you'd think it would make perfect sense to shoot the other beach scenes there, but indeed the hotel (or "hotel") in the movie is not a structure existing on these beaches today, and I couldn't find anything different on late 90s aerials either. I am also suspicious because while Crandon generally matches the beach look, the beach doesn't have these short palm trees (I'm sure @Tom knows what they're called) we see in the scene planted everywhere:

Unless they are exactly in fact the palms currently existing on Crandon beach, and that's how they grew over the last 25 years. Like these:

Now, if it was a real hotel, maybe we could get a hint from a possibly real hotel towels, but I can't get a resolution good enough to read what's on them:

@miamijimf @Matt5

Looking forward to any more thoughts.

 

[airtommy]

I don't have anything to add.  Crandon Park seems to be the only wide beach with palm trees, so it must have been there.  The only elevated structure there is the Crandon Park Cabanas, but that looks wrong and it hasn't changed since the 1980s. 

CGlide has covered most of this movie:

http://www.floridamovielocations.org/page41.html

[Paul Veres]

8 hours ago, airtommy said:

I don't have anything to add.  Crandon Park seems to be the only wide beach with palm trees, so it must have been there.  The only elevated structure there is the Crandon Park Cabanas, but that looks wrong and it hasn't changed since the 1980s. 

CGlide has covered most of this movie:

http://www.floridamovielocations.org/page41.html

Thanks, didn't know that existed! Unfortunately I always have problems opening CGlide's pages with either my antivirus complaining or them just not loading, so not able to check that out yet.

[Tom]

The palm trees Paul asked for are simply small Coconut palms. And yes, they can easily grow that big in 25+ years.

[Paul Veres]

4 hours ago, Tom said:

The palm trees Paul asked for are simply small Coconut palms. And yes, they can easily grow that big in 25+ years.

Well then it might indeed be Crandon beach, we just need to figure out what the hell that structure was - improbable they built a whole nice house with bathroom just for this scene. But you guys let me know if it's already solved in CGlide's site, I cannot access it for some reason.

[Matt5]

22 hours ago, Paul Veres said:

Just watched this movie which was great except for maybe just one too many twists at the end. Was skimming through locations and searched on our forum and it seems there is no designated thread. Without trying to do a full guide yet, here is a couple of things to start.

A location I loved was the Van Ryan mansion, it's just a really grand home:

In a scene where upset Kelly is walking from the dock back into the home with her mother, you can catch a glimpse of tall port cranes, which makes the bridge and road behind the ladies the MacArthur causeway, and along with the curving of the house lot's edge and relative distance puts it into the only two options possible: southeast ends of either Palm or Star islands.

There is only one home there matching the overall layout and architecture, but earlier we can also catch the house number on the gate - 40:

Which seals the deal for 40 E Star Island Dr. A beautiful home built in 1925 and overlooking Miami Beach, it is currently owned by a Turkey-born tycoon.

 

Here is a location which is a mystery. @airtommy brought up that scene by the end of the movie in a different thread. Could it be Virginia Key or Crandon beach? One of these was certainly used in the movie (Suzie murder and investigation), easily identifiable by this structure:

Though there was trellis added into the columns since then, which was a good beautification for this pavilion, it looked abandoned in the movie. Both Virginia and Crandon have these:

So you'd think it would make perfect sense to shoot the other beach scenes there, but indeed the hotel (or "hotel") in the movie is not a structure existing on these beaches today, and I couldn't find anything different on late 90s aerials either. I am also suspicious because while Crandon generally matches the beach look, the beach doesn't have these short palm trees (I'm sure @Tom knows what they're called) we see in the scene planted everywhere:

Unless they are exactly in fact the palms currently existing on Crandon beach, and that's how they grew over the last 25 years. Like these:

Now, if it was a real hotel, maybe we could get a hint from a possibly real hotel towels, but I can't get a resolution good enough to read what's on them:

@miamijimf @Matt5

Looking forward to any more thoughts.

 

I agree with airtommy this is to me is Crandon I was there last year for a while and I have seen these structures. The hotel looks like a makeshift location added in - certainly nothing there like that now. Great post though with your points and questions.

 

 

Edited April 14 by Matt5

[Tom]

vor 12 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

Well then it might indeed be Crandon beach, we just need to figure out what the hell that structure was - improbable they built a whole nice house with bathroom just for this scene. But you guys let me know if it's already solved in CGlide's site, I cannot access it for some reason.

Same ideas there. On CGlide‘s site the wooden house is also suspected to be on Key Biscayne (Crandon Park for me it is as this is the only beach with that width of shoreline plus coconut palms that close to the sea). And thus probably also suspected to be a set built for the movie as there is/was no house like that on that spot. 

[Paul Veres]

2 hours ago, Tom said:

Same ideas there. On CGlide‘s site the wooden house is also suspected to be on Key Biscayne (Crandon Park for me it is as this is the only beach with that width of shoreline plus coconut palms that close to the sea). And thus probably also suspected to be a set built for the movie as there is/was no house like that on that spot. 

Thanks Tom. I was also finally able to access CGlide's website. I couldn't through Chrome before and could with Edge today, and it works in Chrome today too, so I have no idea what's going on. Anyway.

As a location hunter, I am not a huge fan of scenes filmed in a studio or on a built set  Given all the points discussed, I agree the most rational thing, bar having access to actual production sheets, is to conclude they built the fictional hotel villa/bungalow/hut right there on the beach. However, just like Kevin Bacon's character in this movie, I don't like loose ends  I still want to know where on Crandon beach this was built, so I went a little crazy below, though I don't think there is such thing as too crazy on this forum when it comes to location pin pointing. 

In the collage below, note 3 things: the overall relative positioning highlighted by arrows stemming from the villa's entrance, anchoring on a small cluster of small palm trees on the right, and a larger cluster of small palm trees on the left:

 

I inspected several available angles and counted the small palms in the larger cluster:

Counting other palm trees (small in red, large in black numbers below), I can now pull together a sketch of the whole location. I don't know how many small palm trees the small cluster has, hence the question marks, but 3 should be there.

 

The fact that we don't see any lifeguard towers in the scene is very telling and should localize the search, because - see this 1999 aerial - the towers were there, spaced pretty tightly:

Assuming that (1) no tower was moved out of sight for filming the scene, and that (2) there was no major change in palm tree configuration from a hurricane since 1998, this should now be a pretty technical scan with Google Maps street view. Which I will attempt later, in case you guys @Tom @Matt5 @airtommy @miamijimf have any feedback in the meantime.

 

[Tom]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

Thanks Tom. I was also finally able to access CGlide's website. I couldn't through Chrome before and could with Edge today, and it works in Chrome today too, so I have no idea what's going on. Anyway.

As a location hunter, I am not a huge fan of scenes filmed in a studio or on a built set  Given all the points discussed, I agree the most rational thing, bar having access to actual production sheets, is to conclude they built the fictional hotel villa/bungalow/hut right there on the beach. However, just like Kevin Bacon's character in this movie, I don't like loose ends  I still want to know where on Crandon beach this was built, so I went a little crazy below, though I don't think there is such thing as too crazy on this forum when it comes to location pin pointing. 

In the collage below, note 3 things: the overall relative positioning highlighted by arrows stemming from the villa's entrance, anchoring on a small cluster of small palm trees on the right, and a larger cluster of small palm trees on the left:

 

I inspected several available angles and counted the small palms in the larger cluster:

Counting other palm trees (small in red, large in black numbers below), I can now pull together a sketch of the whole location. I don't know how many small palm trees the small cluster has, hence the question marks, but 3 should be there.

 

The fact that we don't see any lifeguard towers in the scene is very telling and should localize the search, because - see this 1999 aerial - the towers were there, spaced pretty tightly:

Assuming that (1) no tower was moved out of sight for filming the scene, and that (2) there was no major change in palm tree configuration from a hurricane since 1998, this should now be a pretty technical scan with Google Maps street view. Which I will attempt later, in case you guys @Tom @Matt5 @airtommy @miamijimf have any feedback in the meantime.

 

I thought I chip in before you interview every grain of sand in the area 

Quickly cross checking your pics with the movie and the historic aerials, I come to the conclusion that the location was exactly where that round circle is (a bit northeast of the polo field, for the following reasons:

• the sealine/beachline in the movie is a bit curved to the left, this is the only spot on Crandon Beach where this the case AND" the following points match
• the palm tree "circles" you identified are exactly there (see my comparisons with 1999 and 2006 aerials, the 2006 is better in color and detail
• the lifeguard towers are no problem IMHO. They only had to remove two towers to achieve what we see in the movie (two towers encircled in red below). The scene plays on a tropical island, so why not remove two towers to achieve that impression (towers would have crushed this), especially since they also had to build a house, so why bother about removing two towers temporarily? Also, there is no other area on Crandon Park or other Miami beaches without towers and the other matching criteris. 

So my bet for the house built for this scene is on the red circle that you already marked. 

P.S: before you complain about the exact number of palms in the orange/yellow circles on the 2006 aerial: coconut palm trees sprout very easily from falling coconuts (or those washed onto the shore) and grow very fast.

 

Edited April 14 by Tom

[Paul Veres]

27 minutes ago, Tom said:

I thought I chip in before you interview every grain of sand in the area 

Quickly cross checking your pics with the movie and the historic aerials, I come to the conclusion that the location was exactly where that round circle is (a bit northeast of the polo field, for the following reasons:

• the sealine/beachline in the movie is a bit curved to the left, this is the only spot on Crandon Beach where this the case AND" the following points match
• the palm tree "circles" you identified are exactly there (see my comparisons with 1999 and 2006 aerials, the 2006 is better in color and detail
• the lifeguard towers are no problem IMHO. They only had to remove two towers to achieve what we see in the movie (two towers encircled in red below). The scene plays on a tropical island, so why not remove two towers to achieve that impression (towers would have crushed this), especially since they also had to build a house, so why bother about removing two towers temporarily? Also, there is no other area on Crandon Park or other Miami beaches without towers and the other matching criteris. 

So my bet for the house built for this scene is on the red circle that you already marked. 

P.S: before you complain about the exact number of palms in the orange/yellow circles on the 2006 aerial: coconut palm trees sprout very easily from falling coconuts (or those washed onto the shore) and grow very fast.

 

Tom, I do not complain.

Yes, the palm trees do not match too well, but I agree that the palm argument is not too tenable given the possibilities of uprooting of old ones and/or relatively quick growth of new ones. I also think temporarily relocating a couple of lifeguard towers is nothing compared to building that villa.

What I really like about your theory is the shoreline and the relative position of the house - I think it matches exactly given the angles we see between the beach chairs and his walk back home. And given the unreliability of the palm tree and lifeguard tower indicators, maybe this relative positioning is the strongest guidance!

The only thing I don't like about this is the vegetation inside your red square in 1999 aerials. In the better (than 1999) 1995 photo we can make out the palm trees against the lawn there:

If they built a house there for filming in 1998 and immediately destroyed it, do we assume they replanted some palm trees in that place which a year later looked like nothing happened? 

If these 1995 and 1999 images were a little better we could literally compare the palm tree pattern and would need to see that the 1999 differs at least slightly because it's all new palm trees planted after the production.

I will still buy this though given the shoreline angle, it's the only place there that can work. Next time I'm on that beach I'll visit the spot though and interview a few grains of sand.

[Tom]

vor 17 Minuten schrieb Paul Veres:

Tom, I do not complain.

Yes, the palm trees do not match too well, but I agree that the palm argument is not too tenable given the possibilities of uprooting of old ones and/or relatively quick growth of new ones. I also think temporarily relocating a couple of lifeguard towers is nothing compared to building that villa.

What I really like about your theory is the shoreline and the relative position of the house - I think it matches exactly given the angles we see between the beach chairs and his walk back home. And given the unreliability of the palm tree and lifeguard tower indicators, maybe this relative positioning is the strongest guidance!

The only thing I don't like about this is the vegetation inside your red square in 1999 aerials. In the better (than 1999) 1995 photo we can make out the palm trees against the lawn there:

If they built a house there for filming in 1998 and immediately destroyed it, do we assume they replanted some palm trees in that place which a year later looked like nothing happened? 

If these 1995 and 1999 images were a little better we could literally compare the palm tree pattern and would need to see that the 1999 differs at least slightly because it's all new palm trees planted after the production.

I will still buy this though given the shoreline angle, it's the only place there that can work. Next time I'm on that beach I'll visit the spot though and interview a few grains of sand.

I also thought about that issue with the palm trees where the house used to be. But, then I thought that the house looks not very big in the movie - in fact it is only partly seen and if we estimate the diameter of the house with 30x30 feet then we´re talking only about a handful of trees to be replanted or moved. Also they could have built the house in front of the first palm tree line, which would minimize the tree chop count or even abolish it.

Edited April 14 by Tom

[Paul Veres]

1 hour ago, Tom said:

I also thought about that issue with the palm trees where the house used to be. But, then I thought that the house looks not very big in the movie - in fact it is only partly seen and if we estimate the diameter of the house with 30x30 feet then we´re talking only about a handful of trees to be replanted or moved. Also they could have built the house in front of the first palm tree line, which would minimize the tree chop count or even abolish it.

Yep, all plausible, the theory stands!

[Kalci]

Have seen this movie about 2years ago. Kevin Bacon is really good in it. As you just described too many twists. Great thread anyway.

[Paul Veres]

I just noticed that CGlide didn't have Sam's house identified. I could have never ever found this house myself, but I found an article online which just stated what it was. The main problem with this house is that it is completely consumed by vegetation. EVEN KNOWING that this is the house it is hard to confirm that it's the house. Here it is congratulations, you found a forest!

In the movie, there are a few shots of it, and you can see that even 25 years ago it was overgrown.

The house has no pictures available on Zillow or other real estate sites, so there is nothing online to compare against these shots.

There are a couple of clues though. The brick driveway from this shot:

Google Maps:

The sides of the driveway are currently covered by vegetation so we don't see those curved borders, but the brick overall looks the same.

Also, while the blue house opposite it is yellow on all available Street Views, at some angles you can catch that rounded window and you can also see the same black chain link fence in front of the hedge:

Another confirmation is the shot of Kelly running away where there is a lamp on the left and the road curves a certain way at the far back of it.

While the street and driveways look quite differently today, we can find this lamp (the lamp post is the same, the lamp itself is slightly different):

And the road curves just the same at the intersection: 

Of course this jungle had to be in Coconut Grove. The address is 4156 Crawford Ave.

Edited April 14 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

Another location stated as unknown on CGlide's website is this attorney get-together where Bill Murray's hilarious character informs the rich snob lawyer that they intend to ride his client's ass all the way to the bank.

This location is also hard to confirm even after finding online where it is - 103 Perviz Ave in Opa-locka. The Cafe Under the Tree (or Restaurant Under the Tree as the menu board on the right says) is no longer there, and the tree itself is also no longer there. 

The curb looks different even on the earliest Street View (2007) - it's not yellow and has a drain in it:

How often you think they redevelop streets in Opa-locka?..

On 2006 aerial the tree is already gone as well:

The aerial closest in time (1999) is of horrible quality - the tree appears to be there, but cannot make out any cafe:

Same in earlier aerials.

There are several sort of matching parameters though, like the wall of another building on the right, another large tree in the back, and housing way in the back on the right. This location is also just around the corner from another filming location - Bill Murray's lawyer office, so would make sense.

Of note, this is a Puerto Rican restaurant, at least in the movie:

Any chances they built the whole thing as a set? Put bars on the windows for authenticity?? Overall another great location which makes you do work even when you know it 

Edited April 14 by Paul Veres

[Tom]

vor 9 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

I just noticed that CGlide didn't have Sam's house identified. I could have never ever found this house myself, but I found an article online which just stated what it was. The main problem with this house is that it is completely consumed by vegetation. EVEN KNOWING that this is the house it is hard to confirm that it's the house. Here it is congratulations, you found a forest!

In the movie, there are a few shots of it, and you can see that even 25 years ago it was overgrown.

The house has no pictures available on Zillow or other real estate sites, so there is nothing online to compare against these shots.

There are a couple of clues though. The brick driveway from this shot:

Google Maps:

The sides of the driveway are currently covered by vegetation so we don't see those curved borders, but the brick overall looks the same.

Also, while the blue house opposite it is yellow on all available Street Views, at some angles you can catch that rounded window and you can also see the same black chain link fence in front of the hedge:

Another confirmation is the shot of Kelly running away where there is a lamp on the left and the road curves a certain way at the far back of it.

While the street and driveways look quite differently today, we can find this lamp (the lamp post is the same, the lamp itself is slightly different):

And the road curves just the same at the intersection: 

Of course this jungle had to be in Coconut Grove. The address is 4156 Crawford Ave.

LOL someone jumped into his car and drive over there from Coral Gables as there was no online verification possible? 

[Tom]

vor 10 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

Another location stated as unknown on CGlide's website is this attorney get-together where Bill Murray's hilarious character informs the rich snob lawyer that they intend to ride his client's ass all the way to the bank.

This location is also hard to confirm even after finding online where it is - 103 Perviz Ave in Opa-locka. The Cafe Under the Tree (or Restaurant Under the Tree as the menu board on the right says) is no longer there, and the tree itself is also no longer there. 

The curb looks different even on the earliest Street View (2007) - it's not yellow and has a drain in it:

How often you think they redevelop streets in Opa-locka?..

On 2006 aerial the tree is already gone as well:

The aerial closest in time (1999) is of horrible quality - the tree appears to be there, but cannot make out any cafe:

Same in earlier aerials.

There are several sort of matching parameters though, like the wall of another building on the right, another large tree in the back, and housing way in the back on the right. This location is also just around the corner from another filming location - Bill Murray's lawyer office, so would make sense.

Of note, this is a Puerto Rican restaurant, at least in the movie:

Any chances they built the whole thing as a set? Put bars on the windows for authenticity?? Overall another great location which makes you do work even when you know it 

I find the 1986 and 1994 aerials are pretty decent in quality. In 1986 the tree is very insignificant compared to the movie in 1999, but in 1994 aerial the tree is as bushy as in the movie. 

And: the cafe was real until the license expired in 1998. 

https://www.myfloridalicense.com/inspectionDates.asp?licid=2313107

On Facebook there are even pictures of the last remaining tree behind of the cafe location, one of the oldest pine trees in Dade Cty - before it will be chopped down shortly for developers (of course, who could have guessed?!)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1410604355754362/permalink/2788157614665689/

Is this now enough original location evidence for you or do I need to find the original wooden planks from the cafe too?  

 

Edited April 15 by Tom

[Paul Veres]

5 hours ago, Tom said:

I find the 1986 and 1994 aerials are pretty decent in quality. In 1986 the tree is very insignificant compared to the movie in 1999, but in 1994 aerial the tree is as bushy as in the movie. 

And: the cafe was real until the license expired in 1998. 

https://www.myfloridalicense.com/inspectionDates.asp?licid=2313107

On Facebook there are even pictures of the last remaining tree behind of the cafe location, one of the oldest pine trees in Dade Cty - before it will be chopped down shortly for developers (of course, who could have guessed?!)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1410604355754362/permalink/2788157614665689/

Is this now enough original location evidence for you or do I need to find the original wooden planks from the cafe too?  

 

Thanks Tom! Yes, I saw the tree on the aerials also, it just sucks one cannot see the cafe on them and generally would be nice to find a photo of the cafe somewhere. Not questioning it was there as much as just cool to see a historic photo of a filming location. 

Very nice find on the DBPR license. 

I looked at the ownership records too:

Trying to pin down when the cafe was demolished, and I'm not too verse in what those qualification descriptions can mean, but if they ran out of license in 1998, they probably didn't renew it just because the business wasn't good, because they didn't sell it until 2007. It's not there on 2006 aerial though. Maybe that 2003 failed sale made them demolish it because it was a troubled property not suitable for dining business anymore and it was easier to sell an empty lot. All unimportant guesses.

I also found what will be built on that empty lots assemblage.

There will be a long apartment building (89 apartments) facing Perviz Ave and Sharazad Blvd, with a large double-deck parking behind it.

Looks pretty good from the front, if we can trust the drawings, including some Moorish beautification elements to fit the neighborhood. There are no amenities like pool etc. so it's probably gonna be housing on the more affordable end.

[airtommy]

The best view of Sam's house is in the 2013 edition of Google Street View.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5BnxGmB9FoLRKZJS9

It's weird - it wouldn't let me change dates when I was in front of the house, but if I went around the corner then I could change the date and then move to the front of the house.

[Tom]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

Thanks Tom! Yes, I saw the tree on the aerials also, it just sucks one cannot see the cafe on them and generally would be nice to find a photo of the cafe somewhere. Not questioning it was there as much as just cool to see a historic photo of a filming location. 

Very nice find on the DBPR license. 

I looked at the ownership records too:

Trying to pin down when the cafe was demolished, and I'm not too verse in what those qualification descriptions can mean, but if they ran out of license in 1998, they probably didn't renew it just because the business wasn't good, because they didn't sell it until 2007. It's not there on 2006 aerial though. Maybe that 2003 failed sale made them demolish it because it was a troubled property not suitable for dining business anymore and it was easier to sell an empty lot. All unimportant guesses.

I also found what will be built on that empty lots assemblage.

There will be a long apartment building (89 apartments) facing Perviz Ave and Sharazad Blvd, with a large double-deck parking behind it.

Looks pretty good from the front, if we can trust the drawings, including some Moorish beautification elements to fit the neighborhood. There are no amenities like pool etc. so it's probably gonna be housing on the more affordable end.

Can´t believe that they really (may) build such an ugly, sky-high POS in this otherwise small residential neighborhood. Like a fist on the eye. Miami zoning authorities must have gone nuts. 

Edited April 16 by Tom

[Paul Veres]

10 hours ago, airtommy said:

The best view of Sam's house is in the 2013 edition of Google Street View.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/5BnxGmB9FoLRKZJS9

It's weird - it wouldn't let me change dates when I was in front of the house, but if I went around the corner then I could change the date and then move to the front of the house.

Great trick @airtommy! This angle lets us indeed see the design and color of the house and approach matching the movie.

[Paul Veres]

6 hours ago, Tom said:

Can´t believe that they really (may) build such an ugly, sky-high POS in this otherwise small residential neighborhood. Like a fist on the eye. Miami zoning authorities must have gone nuts. 

I think the new building looks great, though not a fan of all that parking, but with no viable public transit system in the county that's just hard to get around. This proposed design looks incredibly better fitting the neighborhood than what was built few years ago just a block away:

In Opa-locka's zoning, the southeast lots of this assemblage are designated downtown mixed use, while the north area is designated civic (publicly-owned and/or operated property, including parks and recreation and open space). 

So it looks like they are ultimately giving up that civic space which could be, for example, a park, but the city has seen nothing but decline for decades so it's hard to be picky when it comes to development. The developer doesn't own the blue area and will be leasing it from the city which is in desperate need of revenue. It's all part of the new plan to revitalize the city starting with downtown, which does include 2 new parks!

With lots of mixed-use and mixed-income buildings, one can hope the holistic plan will bring some progress and relief to this poverty-stricken community. They're not knocking down any Moorish architecture, and the rest has little historical value so I personally don't see a lot of damage in going from single story to higher buildings as long as the plan is cohesive - the new urbanism (@pahonu) principles from which the plan feeds require higher density to enable commercial activation and pedestrian appeal. And I mean... probably anything is better than this (current Barracks area):

 

[Paul Veres]

Since we added 3 newly identified locations that weren't on CGlide's page (Sam's house, Cafe Under the Tree, and fake beach villa in Crandon park) I thought I'd go ahead and summarize the locations like I did in the Mean Season post. I omit locations that are unknown and "uninteresting" which we could never put on the map anyway, like airboating in the middle of nowhere in the Everglades or sailing somewhere in the ocean.

Intro pan	Coopertown, 22700 US-41, Miami
Intro pan	Tamiami Trail Shops, 13760 SW 8th St, Miami
Intro pan, a neighborhood	Unidentified
Intro pan	Old Cutler Bay
Intro pan	Downtown from Biscayne Blvd
Intro pan	Brickell near 8th St
Intro pan	Brickell Key towards the bay
Intro pan	Gables Estates
Blue Bay high school	Ransom Everglades High School, 3575 Main Hwy, Miami
Van Ryan mansion	Star Island, 40 W Star Island Dr, Miami Beach
Sam's house	Coconut Grove, 4156 Crawford Ave, Miami
Police department	Coral Gables city hall, 405 Biltmore Way, Coral Gables
Lawyer's office	Retail plaza in Opa-locka, 353 Opa-locka Blvd
Blue Bay Yacht Club	Coral Reef Yacht Club, 2484 S Bayshore Dr, Miami
Smilin' Jack's Fish Camp bar	Jimbo's Place, Virginia Key
Car crash	Unidentified
Courthouse	Miami-Dade County Courthouse, 73 W Flagler St, Miami
Courthouse	Dyer Federal Building And Courthouse, 300 NE 1st Ave, Miami
Driving from the courthouse	Rickenbacker Causeway
Cafe Under the Tree	Cafe Under the Tree, 103 Perviz Ave, Opa-locka
Glades Motel	Jimbo's Place, Virginia Key ???
SunTrust bank	SunTrust bank, 501 E Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale
Suzie murder	Virginia Key
Dumping the body	Unidentified
Island beach	Crandon beach
Lawyer scene	Unidentified

So as I was going through all that referencing CGlide's page, I just can't wrap my head around the Glades motel at Jimbo's. Maybe you guys can help me out as I suspect Jimbo's has been researched in and out before for MV.

We first see Jimbo's used when Sam goes to this dive bar:

He then walks out of that building and looks at a motel across the road - the Glades motel:

In another scene the two are connected in one shot (the bar is in the compound on the right):

Later we even get a view from inside the motel, showing the compound across:

CGlide puts it all togeher on a relatively new satellite image with the white rectangle as the bar and the motel in blue (in pink is Suzie's trailer):

With all of it being here on Virginia Key:

What I can't understand though - was that motel built as a set?? Because I cannot identify it on historic aerials from the time. 1999:

Jimbo's place moved from Miami to this location in 1954 (and closed in 2012), as per this video, which provides a nice overview of the compound. There is a sign in the video saying 'Rooms' pointing somewhere but I'm not sure if that lodging reference was to the motel. Here is a great article describing the place - no motel mention. Confusingly, this 2007 article places the whole Jimbo's compound into a different Virginia Key area, at the bridge to Key Biscayne.

I would really appreciate if somebody has a view on how/where this hotel was over there.

 

Edited April 22 by Paul Veres

[Paul Veres]

As to the very last location in the movei, unidentified, CGlide skipped it altogether, though it's after credits, so maybe he had a different version of the movie (in which the lawyer wouldn't be in on it). 

It's not the easiest one, because it must be again a Miami-Dade location pretending to be some island. With goats roaming the beach!

A quick guess would be Crandon park again, but not sure.

[Tom]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Paul Veres:

What I can't understand though - was that motel built as a set?? Because I cannot identify it on historic aerials from the time. 1999:

Jimbo's place moved from Miami to this location in 1954 (and closed in 2012), as per this video, which provides a nice overview of the compound. There is a sign in the video saying 'Rooms' pointing somewhere but I'm not sure if that lodging reference was to the motel. Here is a great article describing the place - no motel mention. Confusingly, this 2007 article places the whole Jimbo's compound into a different Virginia Key area, at the bridge to Key Biscayne.

I would really appreciate if somebody has a view on how/where this hotel was over there.

 

Yes, that must have been a set, as we have never encountered any such big structure anywhere at Jimbo´s from our previous location hunts for MV that only took place a few years before Wild Things was filmed.

I even remember that one building there was a leftover from a legendary low budget alien movie in the 70s (I think @miamijimf provided that intel), so this place was known for some productions building sets there.