A Cinderella Story | 2004
- Locations |
- Los Angeles, California
- DIRECTOR |
- Mark Rosman
What is says – a retelling of the classic Cinderella tale, transposed to the San Fernando Valley. Little of the film was shot in the Valley though.
The house that Sam (Hilary Duff) shares with her mother Fiona (Jennifer Coolidge) and her bitchy sisters is in Altadena, north of the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena. It's 1272 East Calaveras Street, Altadena. Disappointingly, the pink paint job added for the movie has been removed.
The retro kitschy pink ‘Fiona’s Diner’, where Sam works, is George's 50's Diner, 4390 Atlantic Avenue, in Long Beach, south of the city. It's seen also in David Fincher’s Zodiac. The diner interior was recreated by production designer Charles William Breen on a Warner Bros soundstage in Burbank – so that's kind of in the Valley.
‘North Valley High’ is even further east than Pasadena. It's the Spanish-style Monrovia High School, 845 West Colorado Boulevard, in Monrovia, which you might recognise as 'John Hughes High' from Not Another Teen Movie.
The Huntington Library and Gardens, 1151 Oxford Road, in San Marino is used for the exterior of the Halloween Homecoming Dance, where Sam meets her 'prince' Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray) after online flirting. The gardens are real enough, though the gazebo was erected for the film.
A regular film location, the Huntington and its extensive grounds can be seen in countless films, including American Wedding, Joss Whedon's Serenity, Indecent Proposal, Anger Management, The Wedding Planner, Memoirs of a Geisha and Monster in Law.
The dancehall interiors were actually filmed in another screen regular, the elaborate lobby of the Los Angeles Theatre, 615 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. The theatre’s gorgeous interior can also be seen in Charlie's Angels and sequel Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Chaplin, New York, New York, as a casino in both Batman Forever and Armageddon, and as ‘the Vatican’ in End of Days.
