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Galleria Shopping Mall film location in Los Angeles

posted 15 years ago by jeffyoung1
2 replies | jump to latest

You have to be a Los Angeleno to appreciate this walk down memory lane.

The Galleria Shopping Mall film location stood at the intersection of the 405 Santa Monica Freeway north with the 101 Ventura Freeway north, right next to Sherman Oaks, the entrance to the San Fernando Valley of north Los Angeles.

The Galleria Shopping Mall was also reknown for the iconic teen movie, 1985, "Fast Times At Ridgemont High".
The Galleria really was high school teen hangout that was behind the invention of the term, 'mallrat'. In fact the movie, "Mall Rats" was filmed at the Galleria.
A few years ago, the landmark Galleria Mall was torn down. A replacement mall of sorts was constructed on the location. It'll never be the same though.

[–] marcusman48 15 years ago

It's a pity, but I never got to go inside the original Galleria! It must have had a lot of history, at least in Hollywood.

It's fascinating, though: shopping malls are an international phenomenon (with the largest in the world located in Canada, I think), but whenever someone wants to shoot a "mall" movie, they always come to L.A.! There must be an "authenticity," or something, to Southern Californian malls.

[–] celebriteee 13 years ago

This information is incorrect. The interior shots in the beginning of the movie were filmed inside the Sherman Oaks Westfield Fashion Square Mall (off of Riverside right near the 101). The Galleria had very distinct white railing and was 3 stories- in the beginning of BUFFY you can clearly see the glass railing with gold rim and the 2 stories, all of which is still visible at the Westfield Fashion Square today. Also, the flooring in the Galleria prior to the 94 earthquake was very dark, and one solid color. In BUFFY you can see the mall flooring is tiled with beige and maroon diamond patterns, which again are still visible at the Westfield today.

Just interesting and cool that you actually can still visit the filming location of this movie!

Oh and here is a photo of the Galleria, which you can clearly see was not the filming location:

http://homepage.mac.com/oldtownman/filmnotes/images2/shermanmall.jpg

And here is a photo of the Westfield Fashion Square today (looks nearly identical to when it did during the filming- you can match the floors and railings):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Westfield_Fashion_Square.JPG