Why Whittier is Already Familiar to You

If Whittier, California, looks familiar to you, then you may have seen it featured in some of your favorite movies and television shows.

Located about 20 miles southeast of Los Angeles, Whittier’s unique qualities have been attracting the eye of nearby Hollywood directors for decades. On both the big and small screen, the city has stood in for everything from an Indiana suburb to the planet Vulcan.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Whittier area, you might be surprised how often you’ve seen it before.

Back to the Future

Speaking of Whittier College, I should mention that the college campus is about a mile east of Whittier High School, where they filmed the school scenes for Back to the Future and its sequel. Hill Valley High School in the 1985 film is actually Whittier High School, renamed for the movie. (It’s Richard Nixon’s ’33 alma mater; he also graduated from Whittier College.)

The Incredible Hulk

The college campus was also prominently seen in an episode of television’s The Incredible Hulk, which aired in 1980 and starred Bill Bixby and Lou Ferigno. The actors of the show were seen hanging out around the bleachers of Whittier College’s Harris Amphitheater, on Upper Quad, and inside Wardman Library.

The Little Things

Uptown Whittier was used for a Hollywood crime thriller, The Little Things, starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto. The film crew blocked off a section of Bright Avenue, just a few blocks from the college, transforming the street into a scene set in the '90s featuring Denzel and Leto.

The thriller premiered in theaters and on HBO Max in January 2021.

Disturbia

You may have recognized a few Whittier locations in the 2007 thriller Disturbia, a film starring Shia LaBeouf as a young man confined to his room by house arrest, who fights off boredom by spying on his neighbors.

If you think this plot sounds similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, you’d be correct; this film is heavily influenced by the Hitchcock thriller. Interestingly enough, all of the homes seen in the film are located on Painter Avenue, one of the main streets in Uptown Whittier. In fact, the section of Painter Avenue seen in the film is located just four blocks north of Whittier College.

More Notable Appearances

• Greenleaf Avenue, a main stretch of Uptown Whittier, was used for one of Lea Michele’s musical numbers in the final season of Glee, as well as for a season finale of The Wonder Years (1993) and part of the 1995 film Father of the Bride II (starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, and Martin Short).
   
• The 2009 reboot of Star Trek used a chapel in Rose Hills Cemetery (in west Whittier) for a scene on the planet Vulcan. The chapel also appears in an episode of the HBO series True Blood, and the cemetery was used for action scenes in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, starring Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
   
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series featured Whittier during its first season.
   
• The Halloween classic Hocus Pocus filmed by Central Park, a short walk from campus.

• Matilda, a film adaptation of the Roald Dahl fantasy novel, starring and directed by Danny DeVito, was filmed at a house on Youngwood Drive in the Friendly Hills area of Whittier.

• Blow, starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, and Ray Liotta, filmed at an address on Friends Avenue in Whittier.

• A restaurant scene from an episode of Ray Donovan filmed outside Mimo’s, an Uptown mainstay. An extra Whittier connection: alumnus Kevin Sun ‘13 worked on the shoot as an assistant cameraman.

• In 2001, ER, a series starring George Clooney, filmed inside Presbyterian Community Hospital.

Close to Home

More recently, Carlos Through the Tall Grass, an indie film produced by Whittier College professors Patti McCarthy and Jennifer Holmes, and worked on by Whittier College students, was filmed in the Whittier area. Over the summer of 2019, Whittier College alumni and undergraduates worked together with industry professionals to put together the film.

The next time you visit Whittier, be sure to keep your eyes out for locations from some of your favorite films and TV shows.