When Special Agent Dale Cooper and Big Ed Hurley go undercover at One Eyed Jack’s, there is a short establishing shot of Deputy Hawk’s surveillance van. This shot first appears in Episode 1.006 and is reused in Episode 1.007. In reality, the 1985 GMC Vandura van was filmed around Malibou Lake in southern California.
WHERE IS DEPUTY HAWK’S SURVEILLANCE VAN LOCATED?
The van was parked on Crags Drive around Lake Mailbou in Agoura Hills, California. Homes around the lake are part of the Malibou Lake Mountain Club, a private lake and residential community of custom houses nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains between the Conejo Valley and beaches of Mailbu.
The rocks on the right side of the image above partially blocks the van. In the distance, you can see the boat dock from Episode 1.002 where Ben and Jerry Horne arrive at One Eyed Jack’s.
I visited the location in September 2020. This is the bridge where the van was parked.
This is the view from the bridge looking down to the film location for One Eyed Jack’s.
The episode 1.006 script dated November 8, 1989 describes the establishing shot
EXT ROAD NEAR ONE-EYED JACK’S – NIGHT
A nondescript van is parked to the side of a dark lake road.
INSIDE DEPUTY HAWK’S SURVEILLANCE VAN
The episode 1.006 script continues:
INT. VAN – NIGHT
The van is filled with surveillance equipment. Deputy Hawk wears a set of headphones, adjusts dials, prepares to record.
After the establishing shot, Hawk is seen listening to Agent Cooper’s report from inside One Eyed Jack’s.
Hawk is using a Nagra SNST, a miniature reel-to-reel audio recorder optimized for surveillance applications, circa 1975. Thank you to Matt Blaze on Flickr who posted more details about this miniature recorder here.
“Slightly larger than two iPods, the mechanism runs virtually silently for six hours on two AA batteries, and can record about two hours of voice-grade stereo audio on each 2.75 inch reel of 1/8 inch wide tape. The device is operated with a single switch, with recording or playback selected depending on whether a microphone is attached. Rewind is via a retractable hand crank (the “T” shape between the two reels). A separate amplifier/speaker post-processor (not shown), called the “SNST-DSP” (an anachronistic misnomer, since it’s not digital), filters and EQs the recorded audio for high-intelligibility playback. The first models date to 1962, with other versions of the SN-series recorder optimized for music and film applications (with features such as faster tape speed, higher fidelity, and full-track mono).”
DEPUTY HAWK’S VAN IN EPISODE 1.007
The same establishing shot is used in Episode 1.007.
Big Ed joins Hawk in the van while Cooper speaks with Jacque Renault. This scene was most likely captured when they were shooting for Episode 1.006 but it was saved for Episode 1.007.
