Madonna - Open Your Heart (Music Video) (1986) - Filming Locations

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Historical Production & Location Reference

Music Video: Open Your Heart (1986)
Artist: Madonna
Album Origin: True Blue (Sire Records)
Director: Jean-Baptiste Mondino
Featured Historical Landmarks:
  • Toluca St & West Court St: This Echo Park/downtown-adjacent intersection serves as the core exterior setting where Madonna and young co-star Felix Howard escape down the street.
  • The Peep Show Theater Set: The iconic, neon-lit adult cinema facade was built entirely as a temporary production set on a vacant corner lot at this intersection.

Production & Preservation Note: Filmed on location in the autumn of 1986, this highly stylized video directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino offers a fascinating time capsule of the weathered urban landscape just west of Downtown Los Angeles. While the video famously generated controversy for its provocative avant-garde adult cinema themes, its exterior framing captures the gritty, open topography of mid-1980s Echo Park. For decades, the corner lot utilized for the faux peep show theater remained empty, but the modern influx of high-density residential development has recently transformed the site, with a large, contemporary apartment complex now occupying the historic footprint.

A scandalous (by 1986 standards) music video from Madonna, it was nevertheless placed on heavy rotation on MTV (when MTV played music videos) which no doubt helped record sales immensely. The song reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100 chart in the USA on February 7, 1987.

Like many of Madonna's early music videos, this was filmed near Downtown Los Angeles. In this then and now filming locations video, notice that the location of the adult theatre set has only recently been built up, with a large apartment building now occupying the site.

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Madonna - Filming Locations - Open Your Heart.


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