Brother’s Keeper
Page 5
Page 4 left off as the hot pursuit ended with Tubbs turning away from the road into Surprise Waterway. With more Miami movie magic this last cut of the high speed portion of the pursuit is magically moved. With all the previous cuts being on A1A, I long believed this one cut must be in the same area. It is not. It was filmed on U.S. 1 in downtown Miami, outside what is now Bayside Marketplace. Thanks to my location hunting friend DanJ for sussing that out using the hotels in the background.
Now Crockett uses his smarts and anticipates where Tubbs is heading. It ends up that Tubbs is headed back up the Miami River further west of where the drug deal had gone bad starting the chase.
As Tubbs passes under a railroad bridge Crockett is already there waiting, he jumps into his boat and it’s the start of a beautiful relationship.
The camera is on the south side of the bridge shooting northward. Cars can be seen going by in the background on elevated highways. Below is how it looked in October 2007.
The light green arrow points to the location of the RR bridge where the chase ends. The light blue arrow points to where the chase starts at the boatyard drug deal.
The picture above relates all four shooting locations for the boat vs. car chase. The drug deal (blue arrow), the end at the RR bridge (green arrow), the main boat chase sequence (yellow arrow), and where Crockett stops when Tubbs turns after the barge (red arrow).
Next, Tubbs pays Crockett a visit on the St. Vitus Dance. Crockett’s Govt. issued sailboat that he uses as his home base. In the first two seasons of Miami Vice, Crockett keeps both of his boats tied up here, at the Bayside Marina. In this capture you can see what is now the Hard Rock cafe in the background. You don't see Bayside because its not there yet. It was built during the first two seasons of Miami Vice and varying stages of construction can be seen in different episodes.
The light blue dot is Crockett’s slip.
This next scene is interesting. I watched this movie several times before I realized that the opening of the scene, seen in the picture below is from the same piece of film as the close. They start on the outside of the courthouse with extras walking by. They cut to the interior of the courtroom which is on the 6th floor as revealed by the room numbers on the doors. Then as the scene closes, Leon goes bursting out of the courthouse and the same extras are walking in the same place as at the start of the scene. They just cut the film and added the interior scene in between.
If while watching this scene you follow the woman in the tan dress you see in the above picture until she gets to the street corner in the picture below it will make you laugh. She starts out walking up the steps to the corner where there is no door or anywhere else to go, she stops looks back at the camera and waits for her mark then turns and walks back down the stairs behind Leon. Then although it looks like a flawless one piece sequence there had to have been a cut and another take because all of a sudden she is ahead of Leon.
Tubbs is on the case following Leon.
The light blue box surrounds the Dade County Courthouse. Leon exits the north side center and walks north east. The green arrow points to Crockett's marina.
During the 5 seasons of Miami Vice the filming of the interior of the O.C.B. or Vice Headquarters was done on a set built in studio A at Greenwich Studios. However; the Pilot did not have this luxury and real places were used. For the Pilot they used the second floor of an oil company to pose as the Organized Crime Bureau. That building is now Bunnel Foundations located at 3033 N. NW River Drive Miami.
This next location was very difficult to track down despite all the clues. Working as a group effort with location detectives at miamiviceonline.com we have sussed out that this was most likely filmed at a motel in Sunny Isles, Florida. We continue to work on this location to verify the motel’s location.
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