Malibu Creek State Park

People cruising from Los Angeles frequently visit Hollywood before or after a cruise.  With the addition of the Hollywood Cirque du Soleil show, Iris, which is quite entertaining, and some nice posh eateries, Hollywood is recapturing some of its appeal, but Universal Studios still is a better one stop experience to capture a glimpse into the movies business. 

A lot of outdoor scenes in movies were filmed in Malibu Creek State Park, which is about 6 1/2 miles up the hill from the home of many movie stars, Malibu Beach.  For $12/car parking fee, you get to see where movies like Tarzan adventures from the 1930s, the original "Planet of the Apes," and Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" were filmed. And that's just the bonus to getting back to nature on assorted hiking trails.

Julie and I visited Malibu Creek this past weekend.  One of the clearly marked destinations is the filming site for "M.A.S.H."  Both the movie and the long-running television series were filmed here, and its not hard to imagine this being 1950s Korea for Hawkeye, Hot Lips and Klinger.



The Visitor's Center is located in a charming house erected for the 1948 Cary Grant movie, "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House."  Fortunately, they had ice cold water or sodas for $1 each to quench our thirst after hiking a couple of hours in temperatures topping 80 degrees.  We were welcomed by several workers who enthusiastically shared their love of the park.  They played a short video for us about movies and television shows filmed here. 

It was funny to see how in movies it could be Spain one day and Virginia the next.  It was the "jumping off point" for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," China for Steve McQueen in "The Sand Pebbles," a world for He-Man to battle Skeletor in "Masters of the Universe," South Wales for "How Green Was My Valley" (which won five Academy Awards in 1941, including Best Picture, beating out "Citizen Cane" and "The Maltese Falcon"), Mexico for "Viva Zapata!" and the quaint American setting of "Pleasantville." 



After the movie, one of the park workers said we must go down to the rock pond, where so many scenes had been filmed.  It was only another ten minutes away, so we checked it out.

After hiking through nature, we were hungry, and since we hadn't brought a picnic lunch, we headed down the hill into Malibu where we snagged lunch at a fashionable eatery adorned with Golden Arches.  We order McDoubles for a dollar each, and because we were still thirsty from our sunny afternoon hike, we splurged on a large Diet Coke. 

We backtracked to Malibu Lagoon State Park, where we settled in the sand to enjoy our meal with an ocean view.  Once you buy admission to one state park, you can go to as many as you like on the same day in California, so you can combine the mountains with beaches like we did.