A Look at Land of Film

Unless you’re in the movie business, you probably didn’t know the perfect little city where director Gary Ross filmed the comedy-fantasy “Pleasantville” was actually a cleverly disguised parking lot on the fringes of Calabasas.

Ranger Jim Holt will lead tours of the location and other movie backdrops in Malibu Creek State Park on Sunday, when visitors can see where some of their favorite movies and television shows were shot.

Because the California parks system is prohibited from charging rent for use of its facilities, in-kind arrangements are worked out.

In the case of “Pleasantville,” producers paid the regular parking fee for the lot--or 125 spaces at $5 a day for 60 days.

“You do the math,” Holt deadpanned, hinting at why his tours might be rich in behind-the-scenes movie production lore.

Other sites on the tour, to be augmented with video clips and dozens of production stills collected by Holt, including “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” (1948), “The Defiant Ones” (1958), “The Sand Pebbles” (1966), “Planet of the Apes” (1968) and the recently completed “Hunter’s Moon.”

“For park areas where we couldn’t use the parking fee method, we charged the overnight campsite rate--60 sites each day,” Holt said.

The “campsite” idea was appropriate for the “Apes” movie, a post-apocalypse story where everything took place in a sort of wilderness that used to be Manhattan. Tour participants will see where Charlton Heston got chased through a scenic meadow by angry and armed primates.

For the Steve McQueen movie, “Sand Pebbles,” a pretty area of the park was redecorated to look like a war zone in China 75 years ago.

Keith Carradine’s scenes for “Hunter’s Moon,” about a man who takes up arms to defend the natural environment, did not require any alterations to the pristine landscape.

The “Blandings” house built for the Cary Grant-Myrna Loy classic is still in the park and is now used as a state parks administrative building.

In the original movie, it was supposed to be the epitome of a posh Connecticut country home. Subsequently, the magicians of movie-land attached temporary features to make it look like a Southern plantation for the epic TV series “Roots.”

For “Invaders From Mars,” the house was dressed down to look like an anonymous suburban tract home.

BE THERE

“The Park In Pictures,” a tour of movie and television show settings in Malibu Creek State Park, 1925 Las Virgenes Road (one-quarter mile south of Mulholland Highway), Calabasas. Sunday at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Free admission, parking $5. Meet ranger in lower parking lot at start of each tour. Call (818) 880-0363.