If TV’s Lieutenant Columbo ever finally takes his beloved 1959 Peugeot 403 in to get some of those dents "buffed out," he might end up at Los Angeles area Eckhart Auto Body in Chatsworth, CA.
He and co-owner Mark Cardella Sr. can trade tales of Tinseltown, the shop having had its own close-up with a star turn in decidedly quirky 2002 romcom "Punch Drunk Love." The shop was also in an issue of Autobody News in February 2001.
Adam Sandler, second from left, filming on location at Eckhart Auto Body.
The film involves a withdrawn man, played by Adam Sandler, in a chaotic family -- seven sisters! -- hatching a grand plan to score a planeload of frequent flier miles and finding love when stranger Lena Leonard, played by Emily Watson, wanders into a space he rents in an industrial park. A piano -- technically a harmonium, as Leonard knows -- plays a role, as does a furniture salesman, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who menaces Sandler’s Barry Egan.
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson -- "Hard Eight," "Magnolia" and 2025’s "The Battle of Baktan Cross" -- the flick also features Luiz Guzmán, as well as the Eckhart digs, filling the big screen some six minutes in. The building is right there, in 30-foot-tall grandeur at the film’s original release, as Sandler’s character runs the entire length of the building to an auto wreck -- because, of course.
“The notoriety is interesting,” Cardella said. “This film has a big cult following.”
One day just recently, “I came in, about 7 o’clock in the morning, had a guy who’d come from Providence, Rhode Island, saying, ‘Can we come and look at the space?’”
Cardella said he’s gotten a couple looky-loos a month for more than 20 years. “This movie attracts a lot of interesting people.”
‘He Likes to Film in the Valley’
Among them was Anderson, who has set several films in the San Fernando Valley.
“The location guy said the director found us,” Cardella said. “They wanted long shots down a driveway” -- and the Jeep crash on the street that jars open the film.
There’s also “the blue sky, the mountains, the palm trees in the morning when you first get up -- and I see it every day.”
A truly significant part of the movie involves the six-unit building, and the fees paid by filmmakers helped pay down some debt on the shop and put Cardella’s son, now grown and in the banking industry, through college.
Cardella thinks the blue suit Sandler wears through the film might have been hued to match the shop’s paint.
“It’s not a lot of money-making,” he said, of the nearly quarter century of visitors, “other than what we got for being the location.”
Cardella and his wife and co-owner, Pamela, saw the trailer for the movie on a trip to Boston, and there it was, big as -- bigger than -- life.
The Cardellas moved the shop for the 10 months of filming to smaller space at the front. “They were in the back two spots, and there were six doors,” he said.
From the full 15,500 square feet, he went to about half that, and Cardella learned the business could work in a smaller space, saving on rent. Later he bought the building, keeping space for the shop, leasing out the rest.
“We never missed a job while they were here,” he said.
And the visitors kept coming.
Fade to Grey; No Sequels on the Way
A few years ago, a film-focused podcast, "On Location," with Jared Cowan, hosted a screening of the movie in the parking lot at the shop. Anderson's location manager for "Punch Drunk Love," Larry Ring, also came.
Eckhart Auto Body was featured in the February 2001 issue of Autobody News.
If you’re onsite and know the film, Cardella said, “you can almost envision [Adam Sandler] running down the parking lot, see him running past you.”
He’s seen Sandler in the flesh sometimes, out in public, and “saw Paul at a showing of ‘There Will Be Blood’” some years back.
“The whole group was wonderful [during filming]; it worked out really great,” Cardella said. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to be around that kind of thing.”
The shop’s in movie buff books. The building remains a Hollywood favorite. Until recently, TV show "NCIS: Los Angeles" did special effects work in two of the spaces.
The Cardellas recently sold the property, drawing the curtain.
Now 65, Mark Sr. looks to retire. His dad passed away in January.
“I love this industry,” he said. “But I needed a life change.”
The Cardellas have owned the shop for nearly 30 years. The plan is to turn Eckhart over to longtime foreman Elmer Henriquez, a fan favorite on Yelp.
The current shop has six employees doing 40 jobs a month at an average ticket of about $3,000.
“The building’s new owner bought the equipment; they’re leasing it as turnkey,” Cardella said. “Elmer can handle it.”
Cardella has the space through year-end.
Paul Hughes