NONFICTION - Dec. 10, 1995

SHOT ON THIS SITE: A Traveler’s Guide to the Places and Locations Used to Film Famous Movies and Television Shows, by William A. Gordon. (Citadel Press: 274 pp; $14.95). As long as films and TV shows have been shot on location, entranced viewers have wanted to walk where their dreams first took shape, and this welcome book gives specifics about where some 900 movies and 90 TV shows were filmed, some as obvious as the Mt. Rushmore scene in “North by Northwest” (only partially shot on location), some not. Fans who want to tread where Clint Eastwood dared a hoodlum to make his day can make plans to visit Burger Island on the corner of 3rd and Townsend in San Francisco, while “thirtysomething” fans may be surprised to learn that Ken Olin and Mel Harris’ Philadelphia house is located on Bushnell Avenue n South Pasadana. Divided by states (with most pages going to California) and with indexes listing titles and actors, this book mentions only sites that are accessible, which may explain why a shopping mall used in the frightful “North” is listed and Norma Desmond’s mansion in “Sunset Boulevard” is not.