American Sniper|Seal Beach Pier — The Shooting Gallery and the Teddy Bear

He wins her a stuffed animal at a boardwalk shooting booth. It is the film's one entirely light moment, a man who kills for a living knocking down tin targets for a girl, and Eastwood lets it run just long enough to hurt later. The booth was a dressed set. The pier under it is real: Seal Beach Pier, straight out from the foot of Main Street.

It is the second-longest wooden pier in California, running roughly 1,865 feet into the Pacific. It is also one of the most rebuilt structures on this coast. The original went up in 1906; storms in 1935, 1939 and 1983 took it apart, and a fire in 2016 destroyed the restaurant at the seaward end. The town keeps putting it back. Locals treat that as a point of character rather than bad luck.

Walk the whole length. There is no charge, no gate, no fishing licence required from the deck. The planks are wide and worn pale, the rail is low enough to lean on, and the pelicans sit on the light standards without moving when you pass. Halfway out, turn around: Main Street runs away from you in a straight line, and above the rooftops you can see the hills the film never showed.

Come at dusk on a weekday. The crowd thins to fishermen and the boards start ticking as the wood cools. Photo: representative wooden Pacific pier.