# Cities "Doubling" As Other Cities In Movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 17, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939 "2015-10-17T21:50:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/41 "2015-10-18T15:07:05Z")
count me in as another who immediately thought “Vancouver” when I saw the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/42 "2015-10-18T15:29:09Z")
Vancouver, BC is the stand in for every city west of the Rocky Mountains, and half the cities to the east. Then if you want an eastern US look to the city, it is Toronto. Middle America is apparently in Canada. I think there are financial considerations that make Vancouver a desired location for film and TV producers. I just typed into Google, why are so many films… and Google auto-completed “filmed in Vancouver” as the top choice. > **[Why are so many movies shot in Canada?](https://slate.com/culture/2006/02/why-are-so-many-movies-shot-in-canada.html)** > > Heeding the siren call of the wild in the form of a plummeting Canadian loonie, Hollywood moved north during the last decade, outsourcing to Canada no... > **[Hollywood North](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_North)** > > Hollywood North is a colloquialism used to describe film production industries and/or film locations north of its namesake, Hollywood, California. The term has been applied principally to the film industry in Canada, specifically to the city of Toronto, Ontario and more recently also Vancouver, British Columbia. > The title has been claimed for both Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia. > Vancouver has been used as a filmmaking location for over a century, beginning with The Cowpuncher... ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/43 "2015-10-18T15:44:21Z")
Bangkok has doubled for Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City in at least a couple of films. One was the Robin Williams vehicle _Good Morning, Vietnam_. The parliament building looms large in the background in one scene. Another was the James Bond film _Tomorrow Never Dies_. There’s an aerial shot that’s supposed to be of HCMC, but it’s really Bangkok, with the Chao Phraya River cutting through it. If you look closely, you can even see a boat on the river flying a Thai flag – someone forgot to erase that. And the early scene with the motorcycle traveling over roofs was filmed in Bangkok’s Chinatown. Bangkok doubled for Hong Kong in the wonderful [In the Mood for Love](In the Mood for Love) (2000). The story was set in circa-1960 Hong Kong, but HK doesn’t look like HK anymore. Older parts of Bangkok still look like Hong Kong at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/44 "2015-10-18T15:50:08Z")
And Honolulu doubled for every city seen in the TV series _Lost_ except maybe for the Arab-world-looking ones. I remember one poster on this Board played an extra in a _Lost_ scene set in Berlin. It was actually downtown Honolulu with lots off fake snow laid down. And toward the end of the series when they were driving around through “Los Angeles,” that was downtown Honolulu too – the wife and I recognized several buildings. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/45 "2015-10-18T16:22:29Z")
Sorry for the triple post, but some others: In a reverse twist, Manila played Bangkok in [Brokedown Palace](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120620/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_1) (1999), about two young ladies who get caught trying to fly out of Bangkok with drugs hidden in one’s luggage. The title was slang for the local prison – this may have been based on a true story, but I’ve never heard anyone call the prison that before or since. The filmmakers were refused permission to film here for the negative portrayal of Thailand plus a scene that depicts the king, which is strictly forbidden. It remains banned in Thailand, but videotape copies could readily be found here when it came out. The 1999 remake of _The King and I_ was filmed in Malaysia, due to similar lese-majeste considerations. I’m not sure how much of it was filmed in Bangkok, but Thailand doubled for Cambodia in _The Killing Fields_. The scene where a motorcyclist bombs a hotel early on was filmed in Hua Hin, on the upper peninsula. The hotel was the venerable old Railway Hotel. The scene where the ambassador and the consul leave in the helicopter was filmed in Nakhon Pathom province near Bangkok. As they’re about to board the helicopter, you can see the province’s giant [Phra Pathom Chedi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phra_Pathommachedi), the tallest stupa in the world, in the background. The consul was played by Spalding Gray, who detailed his experience filming the movie here in his book, stage play and film _Swimming to Cambodia_. In 1998’s [Return to Paradise](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124595/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_24), I think it was Macau that doubled for Penang, Malaysia. Then-Malaysian prime minister Mahthir heavily criticized the film after it came out for the “false” portrayal of the prison there, but I’m not sure if permission to film in Malaysia had been denied or even requested. Other parts of the film were made in Hong Kong as well as in the southern Thai island-province of Phuket. And let’s not forget _Apocalypse Now_, in which the Philippines doubled for Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/46 "2015-10-18T17:06:17Z")
Mendocino, which is often used in film and TV as a double, doubled as Monterey in _East of Eden_. Santa Cruz doubled as “Santa Carla” in _The Lost Boys_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/47 "2015-10-18T17:21:42Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Downtown Tel Aviv - Jaffa, technically - doubled for Beirut a couple of times in the 1980’s, in _Delta Force_ and in Navy SEALS. It’s pretty obvious if you know the city. Tel Aviv also stood in for Tehran in _Not Without My Daughter_; in fact, the production hung a gigantic poster of Ayatollah Khomeini on the side of an apartment building on Tchernichovsky Street for a few weeks in 1990, to the befuddlement of passersby. Which really annoys me. Tel Aviv for Beirut is one thing, both Levantine cities. But using Israeli (and Moroccan!) locales for playing Mesopotamian or Iranian locations is stupid, the topography of both is very very different, the Iran Plateau is one of the most distinctive places on earth. Azerbaijan not free? (Ok not an option in 1990) ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/48 "2015-10-18T17:37:37Z")
As I recall, _Due South_, a cop show about a Mountie living in Chicago (long story short, he turned in a well-connected crooked Mountie, and got exiled to stand guard at the Consulate in Chicago). Except for a few much-reused wide-angle scenery shots, just about all of the Chicago scenes were filmed in Toronto. For the few episodes taking place in Toronto, they filmed in Chicago instead. For another _Star Trek_ example, in _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_, the USS _Ranger_ stood in for the USS _Enterprise_, which was away on a deployment. If you have never seen _Star Trek IV_, I imagine this bit of trivia is a bit puzzling for you. Various scenes taking place in and around San Francisco were shot in Los Angeles or Monterey. On that note, sci-fi examples are far too numerous to count, partly because the locations being represented are so often entirely fictional. For bit of a relatively real example, Wadi Rum, Jordan stood in for Acidalia Planitia, Mars in _The Martian_. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/49 "2015-10-18T17:41:42Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Which really annoys me. Tel Aviv for Beirut is one thing, both Levantine cities. But using Israeli (and Moroccan!) locales for playing Mesopotamian or Iranian locations is stupid, the topography of both is very very different, the Iran Plateau is one of the most distinctive places on earth. I haven’t seen the movie myself, but I don’t think they used Tel Aviv for the long shots and panoramic views. They probably just filmed the street scenes there, and even that sounds kind of iffy - I doubt Tehran as has much Bauhaus architecture as the neighborhood they were filming in. Still, I hear you. While I liked _World War Z,_ their stand-in got Jerusalem - Malta, I think - looked nothing like it. Jerusalem has a very distinct appearance, as for nearly a century a very strictly applied municipal code, requires that all buildings match the traditional architecture and be clad with whitish-yellow limestone facades - the famous “[Jerusalem Stone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Jerusalem_vista.jpg)”. There was far too much brick, plaster and marble in the city scenes there for the film to be Jerusalem. Plus the narrow alleyways they were running through are just a small part of the center of the city; everything surrounding them is much more modern. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/50 "2015-10-18T17:47:27Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Except for a few much-reused wide-angle scenery shots, just about all of the Chicago scenes were filmed in Toronto. During car chases and such, you sometimes could clearly see the CN Tower and Canadian flags in the background. What really did it for me were the TTC streetcars on the streets of Chinatown. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/51 "2015-10-18T17:50:50Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > And most of saving private Ryan was also filmed in hertfordshire. Are you sure? I heard Ireland. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/52 "2015-10-18T17:57:19Z")
> [@Nema98](#): > > I remember in 1999’s James Bond film “The World Is Not Enough”, a scene was supposedly shot in Azerbaijan. Who knows if it actually was filmed in that country or not? My guess would be Israel. I can tell you that some of the “Cyrillic” lettering on the signs was actually Greek. I would have to go back and watch the movie again (something I don’t want to do), but there were other things that showed they were nowhere near the former Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/53 "2015-10-18T18:00:50Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > A three-quarter scale East European city was built on the Desilu back lot. Allow me to rephrase: They built an East European _street_ that, when filmed from different angles, could give the impression of being in different cities. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/54 "2015-10-18T20:15:01Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Are you sure? I heard Ireland. 😕 I was thinking of band of brothers that was mainly hertfordshire. But some of saving private Ryan was shot at Hatfield in herts according to IMDb, so I should get half a point maybe. But you’re right that most of it was Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/55 "2015-10-18T22:38:03Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > _East_ St. Louis, that is. Actually I can find multiple cites for plain old St. Louis. [Here’s one:](http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/pages/press/reporter801024.html) > [@](#): > > “St. Louis - unbelievable!” says Carpenter. “We went there because, well, there were certain sequences we just couldn’t do in New York; they would have tied up the whole city too much. And St. Louis, due to a major fire they had there in 1977, now has just the right amount of emptiness in the downtown area. Also the right architecture. So much of the city looks vacant and dead; perfect for our needs since we couldn’t use anything looking new or fresh. The city officials literally turned over the city to us. They’d shut down 10 blocks at a time to help us. I was told they hadn’t hosted a major film for 15 years; they don’t even have a real film commission, just a Department of Tourism. They let us trash it up, and do anything we needed.” A major coup was finding, in St Louis, an exact replica - deserted, desolate, unused - of New York’s Grand Central Station, complete with a train engine. Says Carpenter, “I was told it’s the biggest roofed-in area in the world. We walked in and said, ‘My Lord! We don’t even have to dress it!’” The “exact replica” of Grand Central Station was Union Station (before it’s 1980’s renovation). Definitely a structure that didn’t exist in East St. Louis. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/56 "2015-10-18T22:39:29Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Actually I can find multiple cites for plain old St. Louis. [Here’s one:](http://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/pages/press/reporter801024.html) > > The “exact replica” of Grand Central Station was Union Station (before it’s 1980’s renovation). Definitely a structure that didn’t exist in East St. Louis. I stand corrected, then! ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2015, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/57 "2015-10-18T23:12:27Z")
Los Angeles stood in for Lima, Ohio on _Glee_ - in fact, in one outdoor scene set in Ohio (I am not referring to when they traveled to Los Angeles for Show Choir Nationals), you can barely make out the Hollywood sign in the distant background. (There’s also a scene that takes place at a high school boys’ basketball game where there’s a 35-second shot clock, which Ohio doesn’t have, but California does.) LA also stood in for California on an episode of _Full House_, sort of; the LA Coliseum stood in for Candlestick Park when the show featured a Beach Boys concert. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/58 "2015-10-19T00:06:52Z")
Television examples: Paris played Victorian-era London in the 1950s Sherlock Holmes series, and Eastern European cities, towns, and countryside (mainly Czech) played 1950s France and Belgium in the Inspector Maigret series. I’ve seen several movies where the Los Angeles Metro played some other city’s subway. LA Metro’s “M” pylons look a lot like the Washington Metro “M” pylons. 🙂 IIRC, _Minority Report_ (the movie) used the LA Metro to play the Washington Metro in a chase scene. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/59 "2015-10-19T01:53:07Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > For another _Star Trek_ example, in _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_, the USS _Ranger_ stood in for the USS _Enterprise_, which was away on a deployment. If you have never seen _Star Trek IV_, I imagine this bit of trivia is a bit puzzling for you. Various scenes taking place in and around San Francisco were shot in Los Angeles or Monterey. Specifically the aquarium supposedly in Golden Gate Park was the Monterey Aquarium, with the whale CGIed into the big tank. Crab Apple Cove from Murder She Wrote is Mendocino, California. And the first, bad, ABC Nero Wolfe was obviously filmed in LA, with Archie driving past a yacht basin and less likely, finding a parking space. In College stand ins, the real Princeton was Princeton in A Beautiful Mind - but it also stood in for MIT. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939/60 "2015-10-19T02:06:23Z")
> [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](#): > > Particularly in the 10k rabies run episode, you can easily see the distinctive blue street signs. I’ve noticed them in _The Middle_ as well. Even more particularly, you can see in many _Office_ exterior shots that they’re actually in the San Fernando Valley. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cities-doubling-as-other-cities-in-movies/734939.md?page=4)