I was searching Netflix for an old film. I wasn’t sure if I remembered how it ended or not when I came across a movie I had not thought about in a while from 1990: Pacific Heights. In 1990, I had been in the business of property management in California for three years, and I remember thinking the movie pushed the envelope of believability – but when I watched the film last week – through the prism of years of the wide variety of tenant issues and learning of other issues in the industry. I watched much more intently. You must re-watch this nourishing classic both as a movie and as a lesson in caution as a landlord.
What a cast!
Michael Keaton’s career, of course, soared with Birdman, The Founder (McDonald’s is one of the greatest real estate companies in the world that also makes fries – to be reviewed later), Beetlejuice, Spotlight, and too many more to list. He plays the slick con man who is sicker than that with a vengeance.
Michael Keaton’s career, of course, soared with Birdman, The Founder (McDonald’s is one of the greatest real estate companies in the world that also makes fries – to be reviewed later), Beetlejuice, Spotlight, and too many more to list. He plays the slick con man who is sicker than that with a vengeance.
- Melanie Griffith. She is always great, but her three films run in the 80s were tops: Something Wild with Jeff Daniels and my favorite, Working Girl with Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver, were just awesome.
Melanie Griffith. She is always great, but her three films run in the 80s were tops: Something Wild with Jeff Daniels and my favorite, Working Girl with Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver, were just awesome.
- Mathew Modine. Still going strong even up to last year’s Oppenheimer.
Mathew Modine. Still going strong even up to last year’s Oppenheimer.
- Cameo Alert: Look for Tippi Hedren playing the wealthy widow who is Carter Hayes’s (Keaton’s) next intended victim. Tippi, of course, was made famous in the classic Hitchcock film The Birds. Side note: the location of The Birds, Bodega Bay, on the Northern California coast, still looks the same today.
So, the happy couple Drake Goodman (Modine) and Patty Palmer (Griffith) buy a triplex in San Francisco. Carter Hayes (Keaton) gets them to forgo a credit check in exchange for a list of references and a six-front up-front payment. It is a realistic scenario and a major landlord error. Noise and planted roaches and turning off utilities and evictions lost in court and stripped rental and, oh my, the rest devolves into a standard Hollywood violence will ensue maelstrom.
It’s a good film to revisit and enjoy, plus a happy real estate ending I will not spoil!
