The Jerk is a 1979 American comedy film. Directed by Carl Reiner, the film was written by Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias. This was Steve Martin's first starring role in a feature film. The film also features Bernadette Peters, M. Emmet Walsh and Jackie Mason.
A box office smash earning over $73 million (making the movie the 9th highest-grossing of 1979) and produced on a modestly low budget of $4 million, The Jerk has been praised as not only as one of Steve Martin's best comedic efforts, but also one of the funniest of all motion pictures: In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Jerk the 48th greatest comedy film of all time. This film is #20 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and #89 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs. Premiere magazine voted Steve Martin's performance of Navin Johnson #99 on their list, "The 100 Greatest Performances of All Time." It has an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The website IGN ranked the film as the 10th top comedy film of all time (Wikipedia).
You can view more SFV Filming Locations here.
The Jerk was filmed on over 80 different actual locations according to story notes at AMC. IMDB lists some of those locations with two of the known SFV locations at Devonshire Downs in Northridge and the miniature train ride at Griffith park both of which are shown below.
Devonshire Downs Fairgrounds 18000 Devonshire St Northridge. This location has now been converted to a Medtronic plant. Prior to Medtronic, this historic site was a horse racetrack, concert venue, fairgrounds, and, motorcycle racetrack. You can learn more here. Additionally, CSUN plans to convert the site they own into affordable housing for students and staff.
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| In this shot, you can see the CSUN Dorms in the background which were unfortunatley demolished due to damage from the 1994 Northridge quake. |
The miniature train ride in Griffith Park has been in existence since 1948 and can be enjoyed till this day. The location is 4400 Crystal Springs Drive Los Angeles (Griffith Park).
And here is a bonus which is Navin Johnson's Pontiac Firebird Trans AM custom designed by George Barris based out of North Hollywood who has also designed the General Lee, Knight Rider, Grease Lightning, and the Batmobile to name a few
And the movie trailer:
