Fight Club Golf Trip
Wilmington, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Wilmington, DE
While the mental movie of a golf weekend based on Fight Club LOOKS visually appealing (imagine it now: playing grungy courses drunk in a Hawaiian shirt, leather jacket, and Elvis rose-colored sunglasses while beating the crap out of your golf buddies on the 13th green)... the reality probably isn't so glamorous. Who really wants to show up at work on Monday explaining a black eye anyway? For the sake of you twisted golfers who are A): unemployed, B): underemployed at an hourly gig where you don't have to explain things like black eyes, C): self-employed in a non-customer-interface industry, or D): independently wealthy and sick enough to do this kind of thing… well then here goes:
Most fans of the movie who never read Chuck Palahnik's original novel wouldn't realize that the book was originally set in Wilmington, DE (note the scene where Tyler and Ed Norton's narrator run through the satellite Fight Clubs: all cities in Delaware). There are plenty of industrialized locales in Wilmington DE to put you in a Fight Club kinda mood. Esquire digs Kelly's Logan House (www.loganhouse.com) as one of their Best Bars in America. "Kelly's Logan House has a history of hosting legendary bad-asses: Al Capone. "Wild Bill" Hickok. Former heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan. Things have settled down a bit since the bar opened more than 143 years ago in the Trolley Square section of the city, but it still gets plenty rowdy in here on the weekends with eager coeds. There are two outdoor decks, one at the front of the house; another in the back, plus an upstairs floor where the local bands play and a packed dance floor downstairs, where you'll find a DJ spinning old and new hip-hop and club hits."
Where To Play, Wilmington DE: The grungiest course in Wilmington DE is Ed "Porky" Oliver's. An average muni type dog track with spotty maintenance, some up-and-back holes, with a couple fun holes thrown in. A buddy of mine shot his personal best 18 here on the day of his wedding, so that should give you an idea of the difficulty.
Most of the actual filming locations from Fight Club are from Southern California, in and around the industrialized city of, coincidentally, Wilmington CA. Which would make this a bi-coastal golf trip.
Where To Play, Wilmington CA: Hit Harbor Park GC (1235 N. Figeuroa, 310-549-4953). This cheap 9-holer next to the Navy yard is a perfect spot for Fight Club-style golf. Bring a stencil for spray-painting "Project Mayhem" onto every fence, garbage can, and cart you can find. I can see the X-Box game cover now-- Fight Club Golf: Tyler Tees Off
What To Read Before You Go: Fight Club by Chuck Palahnik. http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Club-Novel-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0393327345/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218477932&sr=8-1
[Fat Guy Note: I have not taken this trip or explored any of these courses/locations (with the exception of Porky Oliver's). As always, proper research and reservations are required. I'm just the idea guy on this one.]
Filming Locations:
Warning: due to the gritty nature of "Fight Club", a high percentage of its filming locations are found in urban areas that may have a high crime rate, and could be dangerous to visit - particularly those in the less reputable parts of downtown Los Angeles and Wilmington. Exercise reasonable caution.
"Lou's Tavern", the tacky neon bar where Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) stages the fights and creates the rules of "Fight Club", was an actual bar, located at the northeast corner of Figueroa Street & Harry Bridges Blvd., in Wilmington, California (not Wilmington, Delaware), across from the docks of the port of Los Angeles harbor.
When that topless bar finally closed its doors for good, the makers of "Fight Club" rented the empty building, put up their own neon signs (The "topless" sign in the back was part of the original bar), and shot the key fight scenes there. Not long after filming ended, the entire building was razed to the ground. The address is now nothing more than a vacant patch of bare land (although you can still see the oil refinery in the background...)
[Fat Guy Notes: A world full of entrepreneurs missed out on a capital opportunity here. Could you imagine being able to hang at the actual bar from Fight Club? There'd be 3 different fights going on in the parking lot at any given time. Then again, I guess it would be a lawyer's wet dream. Also, although unconfirmed, Lou's Tavern also closely resembles the DV8 club owned by The Devil herself (Elizabeth Hurley) in Bedazzled, does it not? Per www.filminamerica.com, Bedazzled's DV8 club exterior scene was filmed in San Pedro, CA, with the San Francisco Bay Bridge digitally superimposed into the shot.]
Likewise, the "Paper Street" house, the Victorian home where Brad Pitt and Ed Norton lived and trained the Fight Club members, was also in Wilmington, CA, not far from Lou's Tavern, at 240 N. Neptune Ave. (the southeast corner of Neptune Avenue & C Street).
The production company built the house from scratch on what was then an empty weed lot in Wilmington. (When they first built it, it looked like a brand new house. A few days later, they had "aged" it into the sad state you see in the movie.) After they shot the scenes, then tore the house down and left the lot as empty as it had been when they first found it. Since then, though, the entire block (and several other blocks in the area) have been razed to the ground, to make way for eventual expansion of the nearby Port of Los Angeles. So unfortunately, there is now nothing left to see of either the house or the tavern.
Early in the film, the Narrator (Ed Norton) goes to a large church to attend a support meeting of cancer victims (where he first talks to 'Marla', played by Helena Bonham Carter). The church is actually St. Brendan's Catholic Church, located at 310 S. Van Ness Ave., in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. (This same church was also seen near the end the original (1953) film version of War of the Worlds.)
In one scene, Ed Norton watches as 'Marla' goes into a coin-op laundromat and steals a load of laundry. That laundromat scene was actually filmed on Melrose Avenue, at a real laundromat named "Laundryland", located at 4371 Melrose Ave., in Los Angeles. (This in the unfashionable section of Melrose, miles to the east of the trendy shopping district, and just east of the Hollywood Freeway.)
Helena Bonham Carter then goes to a Vintage Clothes store nearby and sells the items she stole from the washing machines. Afterward, she and Ed Norton exchange phone numbers outside the store. That "vintage clothes" storefront (it's now a florist shop) is nearby on Melrose, just a block to the east of the Laundromat, at 4314 Melrose Ave.
Ed Norton comes home to find fire department trucks outside his condo, and learns that his apartment atop 'Pearson Towers' has exploded and burned. The actual apartment building used in that scene was the Promenade Towers, located at 123 S. Figueroa Street (between 1st & 2nd Streets), in downtown Los Angeles.
There was one other "Fight Club" location in Wilmington. Remember the scene in front of the tire yard, where (as part of a 'homework assignment' to start a fight - and lose) a Fight Club member squirts passerbys with a hose? That scene was shot at the Llantera Tire Center, at 505 N. Avalon Blvd. (at E Street), in Wilmington, CA.
In a similar "homework assignment", another Fight Club member tries to pick a fight in the middle of a public art piece, comprised of large geometric shapes of burnished steel. This work of art is titled “North, East, South, West”, and it is located just outside the doors of the 48-story office building at 444 S. Flower (at 5th & Flower) in downtown Los Angeles. (It's between the Bonaventure Hotel and the U.S. Bank Tower.)
The movie theatre scene, where Brad Pitt splices single frames of pornography into a family film, were shot at the historic Los Angeles Theatre, located at 615 S. Broadway, in downtown Los Angeles. Closed to the public most of the year, the Los Angeles Theatre is often used for movie shoots, but the interior can be viewed by the public once a year as part of the annual "Last Remaining Seats" festival.
The hotel restaurant scene, where Brad Pitt 'contaminates' the lobster bisque, was shot at the Biltmore Hotel, which is located at 506 Grand Ave., in downtown Los Angeles.
'Marla Singer' (Helena Bonham Carter) lives in the tacky Hotel Bristol near Skid Row. That is an actual hotel, located at 423 W. 8th Street (between Hill & Olive), in downtown Los Angeles.
There is a scene where the Fight Club vandals blow up a computer shop called "Lightning Electronics" (the fiery explosion rips through the front glass windows of the storefront). A street sign, visible in the scene, shows that the scene was shot at a storefront at the 500 block of W. 6th Street (near the corner of 6th & Olive) in downtown Los Angeles.(near Pershing Square and the Biltmore Hotel).
Remember the scene where the "Fight Club" vandals erase the video tapes on the shelves of a video store by running a magnetic degausser over them? That was shot at an actual Blockbuster Video, 6340 Wilshire Blvd. (west of Fairfax, east of San Vicente), in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles.
When Ed Norton is flying around the country, looking for info on the Fight Club franchises, he encounters a clerk in a dry cleaners who refuses to tell him anything, he just nervously mumbles a mantra about not being able to talk. Ed replies, with a shrug: "You're a moron." That dry cleaners scene was shot at an actual dry cleaners: S & H Cleaners, located at 511 S. Spring Street (at 5th Street), on the south side of downtown Los Angeles.
* Locations marked with an asterisk may be located in high-crime areas. Exercise reasonable caution.
Also see: http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/f/fightclub.html
Trivia for
Fight Club (1999) from
Tyler Durden: "The first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells Stop!, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule, one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule, fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight."
ww.imdb.comDirector David Fincher shot over 1,500 reels of film, more than three times the normal amount
Brad Pitt's character was originally going to recite a workable recipe for home-made explosives. In the interest of public safety, the filmmakers decided to substitute fictional, dud recipes for the real ones.
Author Chuck Palahniuk actually found the modified ending in the film to be better than the one he had written in the novel.
Although he refused to smoke in Rounders (1998) (despite his character being written as a smoker), Edward Norton did smoke in this film.
During an exterior shot in a residential, urban area, a man in one of the apartments above the working film crew got annoyed with the noise and threw a 40 oz. beer bottle at them. The bottle hit director of photography Jeff Cronenweth who was not seriously injured and the man was arrested shortly afterward.
The reverse-tracking shot out of the trash can, an elaborate computer graphic, was the very last shot to be added to the film - as almost an afterthought by the director. It required so much processing time that it almost had to be spliced in "wet" - i.e., fresh from the lab - so that the film could be duplicated on schedule.
In the short scene when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are drunk and hitting golf balls, they really are drunk, and the golf balls are sailing directly into the side of the catering truck.
During rehearsals Brad Pitt and Edward Norton found out that they both hated the new Volkswagen Beetle with a passion. In the film they are seen banging a Volkswagen Beetle with baseball bats. However, after the film's DVD release Pitt is quoted in the commentary section of the DVD as saying he had a change of heart about his feelings for the new VW Beetle.
One of Project Mayhem's acts of vandalism is the destruction of a display of Apple Macintosh computers. The explosion occurs at exactly 84 minutes into the film, an ironic reference to Apple's famous tribute to George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" when they debuted the Macintosh during the 1984 Super Bowl.
The brown station wagon against which Edward Norton falls in his first fight with Brad Pitt is the same brown station wagon used in The Game (1997), in which Michael Douglas hid while James Rebhorn drove him to CRS headquarters. The car has a CRS sticker on the windshield.
Three detectives in the film are named Detective Andrew, Detective Kevin, and Detective Walker. Andrew Kevin Walker was the writer of the David Fincher film Se7en (1995) (Also starring Brad Pitt), and did some uncredited work on this movie's script.
As Tyler jumps into the red convertible outside of the airport a man can be heard yelling, 'Hey, that's my car.'
In Tyler Durden's house there is a Movieline magazine cover featuring 'Drew Barrymore' , a close friend of Edward Norton.
While Edward Norton is trying to convince Helena Bonham Carter to leave the city by bus, the crew arranged cinema signs to make references to other films the cast had been in, although only one is visible during the actual scene. Seven Years in Tibet (1997) (starring Brad Pitt) is visible, although the sign letters actually say "Seven Year In Tibe" as if the theatre didn't have the required letters. Other marquees (in the far background, and not visible) reportedly said The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) (starring Norton) and The Wings of the Dove (1997) (starring Carter).
The telephone number of the Paper Street Soap Company (as printed on the phone the Narrator uses to call the "1888" office building near the end of the movie) is (288) 555-1534. The Paper Street Soap Company's phone number as listed on Tyler's business card is (288) 555-0153. The narrator's boss' business card shows a phone number of (288) 555-0138. At the time of the film's release, area code 288 was "reserved for future use".
The zip code on Richard Chesler's (The Narrator's boss) business card is 198090 (shown briefly in the scene where The Narrator beats himself up in his boss's office). In the shot where we see Tyler Durden's business card (just before The Narrator calls him), The Narrator's thumb could possibly be hiding the 6th digit. All we are able to see is 19808...then it's all thumb.
The "filing cabinet" apartment block that the Narrator lives in is called "Pierson Towers", and the motto is "a place to be somebody" which is the city motto for Wilmington, Delaware.
There really is a Paper St. in Wilmington, Delaware, but there's no street number 1537 (the numbers on that street don't go that high). [My Note: It's actually called Paper Lane, and it's out in the 'burbs, not in the gritty part of Wilmington DE, about a half mile from a mall.]
The typeface used for the titles and logo is named "Big Science".
Some of fake names used by the narrator in the self-help groups are names of characters in Planet of the Apes (1968), as well as classic roles played by Robert De Niro.
Director of Photography Jeff Cronenweth's sister, Christie has a cameo in the film as the airline check-in attendant.
Cameo: [Kevin Scott Mack] Visual effects supervisor is one of the terrified passengers of the plummeting jet.
Cameo: ['Ed Kowalczyk' ] Member of the band Live plays the waiter who serves the Narrator and Marla with the line, "Sir, anything you want is free of charge, Sir."
In the press packages released for the movie, which came in the form of Ikea-esque catalogues, Edward Norton's character is referred to as "Jack".
The only remaining pink and white giant "fat soap" prop (appox. 12" x 10") featured in the movie can be seen briefly but clearly behind the character Warren Henley in a scene in the film Automatic (2001) as a framed piece of art.
In the closed captioning, whenever the Narrator speaks and is not seen, the closed caption begins with "Rupert:"
The original "pillow talk"-scene had Marla saying "I want to have your abortion". When this was objected, it was exchanged for what we see now: "I haven't been f*cked like that since grade school". When those who had protested saw this they were even more outraged and wanted the original line back. But by then it was too late.
Starbucks pulled their name from the coffee shop destruction scene. They didn't mind the director placing their product throughout the film, but did not want their name to be destroyed in that scene. Therefore, when the gold globe crashes into the coffee shop, there is no company name shown on film.
Fincher wanted Fight Club to have a new brand of promotional pieces. Which is why the soap bar became the logo for the film. In fact, in the beginning, the soap bar was the only thing he wanted on the poster. But Fox made him change it to include Pitt and Norton's faces. But if you pay attention to all the different posters, magazine ads as well as the cover of the movie tie in book, you'll notice a few changes in each regarding the ancient map in the background. In the official poster, it appears behind Ed Norton. On the cover of the paperback, it appears behind Brad Pitt. And in the magazine ads, it appears behind neither of them.
Edward Norton lost 17-20 pounds for this role after having to beef up tremendously for his role as a Neo-Nazi skinhead in "American History X." Norton achieved this form by running, taking vitamins and just ignoring the on-set catering.
Chuck Palahniuk thought up the character Tyler Durden years before he ever wrote his book. He got the idea after an encounter with a real life person named Tyler Lovelly whom he was seated next to on a plane.
Fox originally wanted someone with a name to play Marla after they decided not to go with Helena Bonham Carter. The only other name thrown in was Reese Witherspoon. But Fincher, Witherspoon, and the studio declined saying that she was too young, and Witherspoon said it was just too dark.
David Fincher took 12 takes of the stuntman rolling down the stairs when the narrator gets thrown down the stone steps in the parking lot by Tyler in their final fight, but the shot used in the movie is the very first take.
Tyler Durden comes from Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1960) and a former coworker of Palahniuk's who left under a sexual harassment cloud.
Chuck Palahniuk came up with the story after getting beaten up on a camping trip by some people who'd refused to turn down their loud radio in a neighboring campsite.
David Fincher had to receive separate funding for the complex "Fear Center" title sequence. In the DVD commentary, Fincher remarks that the studio told him "if the movie's good" they would allow him to do the very expensive introduction.
Edward Norton's apartment building, Pearson Towers, which he returns to at the beginning of the film to find his possessions strewn all over the sidewalk is actually Promenade Towers located at 123 South Figueroa in downtown Los Angeles. The apartment building's slogan in the movie is "A Place to be Somebody" while the actual apartment building's slogan is "A City in a City".
Marla Singer's phone number, 555-0134, is the same as Teddy's number in Memento (2000).
Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) says she goes to support groups because "It's cheaper than a movie, and there's free coffee". In Margaret's Museum (1995) (starring Helena Bonham Carter), Kate Nelligan says she goes to funerals because it's cheaper than bingo, and there's free food.
After the copyright warning, there is another warning on the DVD. This warning is from Tyler Durden, and is only there for a second. "If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this is useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned.......Tyler"
David Fincher claimed in an interview in UK film magazine Empire, that there is a Starbucks coffee cup visible in every shot in the movie (see also The Game (1997)) .
When a Fight Club member sprays the priest with a hose, the camera briefly shakes. This happens because the cameraman couldn't keep himself from laughing.
The workprint for this film ran about 153 minutes. It featured all of the deleted/alternate scenes from the DVD, small scenes/lines not included on the DVD (such as the "blow up baggage" sequence seen in one of the behind-the-scenes documentaries), completely different feel to the narration and almost no Dust Brothers music. Where there was music, it was nothing like the music used for the final film. Overall, this version of the film had a lot different mood from the final.
When the Narrator is writing haiku poems at work and sending them to coworkers, the names on the email list include those of Production Assistants and other crew members.
The Narrator works at Federated Motor Corporation, in the Compliance and Liability division. FMC is located at 39210 North Pennfield Boulevard in Bradford (the state is not specified). His Manager's phone number is (288) 555-0138, and his fax number is (288) 555-0149, both non-existant area codes.
Helena Bonham Carter wore platform shoes to help close up the disparity in height between her and Edward Norton and Brad Pitt.
Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter's sex scene is largely computer generated.
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton actually learned how to make soap.
Tyler Durden and his Paper Street address (420 Paper St. Wilmington, DE 19886) are a sample name and address on the front of a box of Matte White Ink Jet Avery Labels (#8293).
In an early version of the script the Narrator confirms that he lives in Wilmington, Delaware.
Courtney Love and Winona Ryder were also considered for the role of Marla Singer.
The term 'Paper Street' refers to a road or street that has been planned by city engineers but has yet to be constructed. A paper street is sometimes published in common street directories by accident, but does not yet exist.
Voted #4 in Total Film's 100 Greatest Movies Of All Time list (November 2005).
The burnt out car that Edward Norton's character is examining is a Lincoln Town Car.
Near the beginning of the film, a poster for the band 311 can be seen behind The Narrator's head, in the pawn shop scene with Marla.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
SPOILER: Tyler appears in the film at least five times before the Narrator glimpses him on the moving walkway in the airport. In the four appearances, Tyler flashes on screen for just an instant and is only visible when the Narrator has insomnia:
At the photocopier at work;
In the doctor's office, when the Narrator is learning about the testicular cancer support group;
At that group's meeting;
As the Narrator sees Marla leaving a meeting but doesn't follow her.
Tyler shows up as a waiter in the presentation video of a hotel
Tyler is on the opposite moving walkway in the airport when The Narrator says "if you wake up in a different place, at a different time, do you wake up a different person" the narrator stays at.
SPOILER: When Tyler is about to tell the Narrator about how he met Marla, the Narrator says "I already knew the story before he told it to me."
SPOILER: When the Narrator is traveling, frantically trying to find Tyler, he says, "I was living in a state of perpetual déjà vu. Everywhere I went I felt like I'd already been there. It was like following an invisible man."
SPOILER: The Narrator says, "I know this because Tyler knows this."
SPOILER: Chuck Palahniuk revealed that when he wrote the book, he did not actually know that Tyler and Jack (or Joe in the book) were the same person until he was two thirds of the way through writing the story. He noticed that they acted together as one person and chose to finish the story as such.
SPOILER: When the Narrator fights himself during the scene with his boss he says that he thought of his first fight with Tyler.
SPOILER: In the car scene where Tyler tells Jack to "Just let go!" Tyler is driving, yet Jack gets out of the driver's side door after the crash. This, in fact, was unintentional, and while looking at the dailys Fincher chose to keep it.
SPOILER: Everything Tyler says to the Narrator when he receives a phone call from the arson police investigator is true.
SPOILER: When Tyler tells the Narrator that he is leaving, the Narrator has a bruise on his head. When the Narrator wakes up "the next morning" the bruise is gone, obviously indicating that it has been some time that he's been asleep (in actuality he wasn't asleep but went all over the country as Tyler setting up the fight clubs.)
SPOILER: At the airport, the Narrator says "Could you wake up as a different person?" and the camera follows Tyler.
SPOILER: For a brief moment in the beginning of the film, the Narrator can be seen as Tyler's reflection in the window.
SPOILER: Early on, we see the Narrator getting off a bus with one of the Project Mayhem folders.
SPOILER: The Narrator wanders the house while Tyler and Marla noisily have sex upstairs. When the detective calls and the Narrator answers the phone, the sounds of the lovemaking instantly stop.
SPOILER: When the airport employee "lends" Tyler the car, the Narrator and Tyler get in through the same door. After the crash where Tyler was driving, Tyler pulls the Narrator out of the driver's side of the car.
SPOILER: When the airport valet lends Tyler and the narrator the car, while addressing "Mr. Durden" he is looking straight at the Narrator.
SPOILER: When the Narrator is talking to the doctor about his sleeping problem, he states that he might have narcolepsy, for he sleeps and wakes up strange places that he's never been to. Later, he states that Tyler was a night person. In one Scene, Bob ('Meatloaf' ) even says that he has heard rumors that Tyler only sleeps one hour a day.
SPOILER: On the airplane the Narrator mentions that they have the exact same briefcase. And although Tyler opens his, we never see the contents of the Narrator's.
SPOILER: At the payphone when the Narrator gets a phone call from Tyler, the sign on the payphone reads: "No Incoming Calls Allowed".
SPOILER: When the Narrator asks the members of Project Mayhem what they did after they vandalized that building and made a happy face on it, they laugh as if he'd just made a joke about not knowing what was going on.
SPOILER: When the Narrator threatens his boss, after he finds the Fight Club rules in the photocopy machine, he says to himself, "Tyler's words, coming out of my mouth."
SPOILER: When entering Lou's Tavern, the Narrator enters first and the guy out the front only acknowledges the Narrator, as though Tyler doesn't even exist.
SPOILER: When going to the convenience store where Raymond K Hessel works, Tyler gets the gun out of the Narrator's bag. The Narrator obviously didn't know the gun was there, indicated by his astonishment "Is that a gun?". Despite the fact that it's his backpack.
SPOILER: When the Narrator enters the house prior to seeing the news report of the happy face on the building, he is carrying one of Project Mayhem's folders.
SPOILER: When the narrator gets on the bus with Tyler, he only pays the fare for one person.
SPOILER: When Tyler and the Narrator are on the bus, the long-haired guy pushes past Tyler without a word, then says "excuse me" as he pushes past the Narrator.
SPOILER: When the Narrator and Tyler are discussing their fathers, Tyler mentions how his father didn't go to college but expected Tyler to. The Narrator says that sounds familiar.
SPOILER: The buildings that blow up in the end are all Fox-owned buildings digitally composited into the shot. It was feared that they would invite legal action against the production if they portrayed real credit card companies blowing up.