# Movies filmed on a location you know well **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 13, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515 "2022-09-13T19:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/161 "2022-09-17T19:17:43Z")
Does St. Catherines count as Toronto? The school scenes from _A Christmas Story_ were shot at the Victoria School there. > [@themapleleaf](#): > > One more example, this time from Prague, where I live now. This is another city that film makers like to use as a stand-in for other places. It stood in for Vienna in _Amadeus_. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/162 "2022-09-17T19:23:27Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > In the spring of 1998, I was a senior at Lawrence Park, a Toronto high school in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of the same name. Hey whaddaya know? I went to Lawrence Park CI too! Class of '79 here. Give a cheer for the good old Gold and Blue, eh? ---
**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:** [September 17, 2022, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/163 "2022-09-17T19:26:01Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I’ve only ever been to New Jersey once (and I thought it was pretty), but if I ever got to Holmdel, I’d definitely try to find the Bell Labs, just to see where Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang. I think they were actually in Crawford Hill Lab, right near the main Holmdel Building. I don’t know if it still there, but there was a water tower shaped like a transistor. Holmdel itself had a gigantic central atrium with the offices in corridors around it, six floors or so up. Always reminded me of a prison or the underground alien place in Forbidden Planet. ---
**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:** [September 17, 2022, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/164 "2022-09-17T19:30:08Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > One more example, this time from Prague, where I live now. This is another city that film makers like to use as a stand-in for other places. The 2017 film “The Zookeeper’s Wife”, a historical film set in Warsaw at the time of World War II. Old Warsaw was largely destroyed in the War, whereas Prague’s historic parts were (largely) spared. In this film, the Prague park Stromovka, which contains several elegant old buildings (e.g. a planetarium) and is near the city exhibition grounds, was a stand-in for the Warsaw Zoo/the immediate area. I recognized this shortly after starting to watch the film; the landmarks were unmistakable. I was walking down a street in Prague one day in February, 1992. I turned a corner and found myself in front of Gestapo headquarters, complete with swastika banners and black Mercedes parked in front. It was a real Twilight Zone experience! 😳 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/165 "2022-09-17T19:30:13Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I don’t know if it still there, but there was a water tower shaped like a transistor. The Transistor Water Tower is still there. Hopefully this works: https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=%213m2%212sen%214v0%216m8%211m7%211sAF1QipPWKKofdJxhR551sd%212m2%211d40.3718117%212d-74.1600055%213f82.54%214f9.788%215f0.75 I know Bell Works, the former Bell Labs pretty well. Hell, I went there for career day all the way back in 8th grade as my first visit. As I mentioned. Many friends and my wife worked there in the Bell Labs days. Its rebirth as [Bell Works](https://bell.works/new-jersey/explore/) is pretty interesting. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/166 "2022-09-17T19:33:41Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > > [@FinsToTheLeft](#): > > > > I like when they pretend to be Chicago/New York and the big BMO logo shines at the top of First Canadian Place. > > That said, one of Chicago’s home town banks (Harris Bank) now goes by “BMO Harris” (they were bought by Bank of Montreal in the '80s), and uses the BMO logo now. > > [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/21/BMO\_Harris\_Bank\_logo.svg/1280px-BMO\_Harris\_Bank\_logo.svg.png](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/21/BMO_Harris_Bank_logo.svg/1280px-BMO_Harris_Bank_logo.svg.png) Or here’s an example from a _Canadian_ film. When watching the 2000 Kevin Sullivan Miniseries “Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story”, which had the classic L.M. Montgomery heroine go to look for her now-husband Gilbert Blythe in World War I-torn Europe, I recognized a building from my school, the University of Toronto, in a scene that would have been set in Germany or France. I recognized it by the carving of a griffin that stood beside a staircase. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Does St. Catherines count as Toronto? The school scenes from _A Christmas Story_ were shot at the Victoria School there. > > > [@themapleleaf](#): > > > > One more example, this time from Prague, where I live now. This is another city that film makers like to use as a stand-in for other places. > > It stood in for Vienna in _Amadeus_. St. Catharines sure is near enough TO to be a likely filming location. As for “Amadeus”, great movie and great filming locations in Prague, though I wouldn’t recognize from sight any one of them (a lot of it filmed inside). > [@Spoons](#): > > > [@themapleleaf](#): > > > > In the spring of 1998, I was a senior at Lawrence Park, a Toronto high school in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of the same name. > > Hey whaddaya know? I went to Lawrence Park CI too! Class of '79 here. Give a cheer for the good old Gold and Blue, eh? Hey, cool. I was born in 1979. Class of '98. …Let’s keep our colors strong and true… Our mascot - the panther. Did you know that Neil Young went to LP, as did newscaster Wendy Mesley? I remember seeing her picture in an old yearbook. Apparently she was a cheerleader there at one time. Young, I’m told, got in trouble for riding his motorcycle through the school hall. > [@terentii](#): > > I was walking down a street in Prague one day in February, 1992. I turned a corner and found myself in front of Gestapo headquarters, complete with swastika banners and black Mercedes parked in front. > > It was a real Twilight Zone experience! 😳 I can only imagine how that felt if you didn’t expect to be met with a film set. I also ran into one of the street sets for filming “Anthropoid” (a film about a central event in Czechoslovak history during World War II), but by then I had long learned about the ins and outs of Prague. ---
**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:** [September 17, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/167 "2022-09-17T19:38:10Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > I can only imagine how that felt if you didn’t expect to be met with a film set. I also ran into one of the street sets for filming “Anthropoid” (a film about a central event in Czechoslovak history during World War II), but by then I had long learned about the ins and outs of Prague. The assassination of Heydrich? Have you visited the hairpin curve where the SOE agents attacked his automobile? ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/168 "2022-09-17T19:42:10Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > The assassination of Heydrich? Have you visited the hairpin curve where the SOE agents attacked his automobile? Indeed I have. In fact, in the past, when I was religious, I attended the church in whose crypt the British-trained paratroopers/partisans who participated in Operation Anthropoid hid and died (you can see this church in the Anthropoid movie). ---
**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:** [September 17, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/169 "2022-09-17T19:49:13Z")
I’ve been to that church too. As I recall, it’s on an embankment and was narrowly missed by Allied bombs near the end of the war. I also made a day trip to Lidice in the spring of 1992. It was one place I definitely wanted to visit while I was in Czechoslovakia. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/170 "2022-09-17T19:53:07Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > Hey, cool. I was born in 1979. Class of '98. …Let’s keep our colors strong and true… Our mascot - the panther. Did you know that Neil Young went to LP, as did newscaster Wendy Mesley? I remember seeing her picture in an old yearbook. Apparently she was a cheerleader there at one time. Young, I’m told, got in trouble for riding his motorcycle through the school hall. Yes, I knew about Young and Mesley; and did you know that Beverly Thomson (host on CTV’s Canada AM for a number of years, among other duties with the network) went to LP too? She was actually in my sister’s class. And yes, she was a cheerleader too. Well Thomson was, not my sister. Now I’m going to have to watch “Dick,” just to see the old school. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/171 "2022-09-17T19:57:35Z")
[quote=“Spoons, post:170, topic:971515, full:true”] > [@themapleleaf](#): > > Yes, I knew about Young and Mesley; and did you know that Beverly Thomson (host on CTV’s Canada AM for a number of years, among other duties with the network) went to LP too? She was actually in my sister’s class. And yes, she was a cheerleader too. Well Thomson was, not my sister. That one I didn’t know! ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/172 "2022-09-17T20:05:21Z")
I checked out movies filmed where I lived. I found a movie with a scene filmed in my high school gym. It was filmed about three years after I graduated. It’s not a movie I have heard of before, but it has a couple of actors I know from TV shows. I found the movie on youtube and saw the scene (about 10 minutes) and was able to see the gym as I remember it. I think the gym is gone now. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/173 "2022-09-17T20:08:12Z")
Parts of New Jersey are still lovely and unspoiled. It’s just that the ugly overdeveloped bits get the most media attention ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/174 "2022-09-17T20:14:52Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > Hey, cool. I was born in 1979. Class of '98. …Let’s keep our colors strong and true… Our mascot - the panther. My wife was ‘93, her brother and sister were ‘96 and ‘00. My kids are ‘23 and ‘26. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/175 "2022-09-17T20:28:13Z")
The Robert Mitchum remake of _The Big Sleep_ starts with the credits rolling over a long driver’s POV shot of the A1 road past Stevenage, turning into Knebworth House, which doubles as General Sternwood’s residence. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2022, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/176 "2022-09-17T20:31:27Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Parts of New Jersey are still lovely and unspoiled. It’s just that the ugly overdeveloped bits get the most media attention Yeah, the one time I visited, my wife and I had been trying to fly into Newark. But a huge snowstorm knocked out every airport on the East Coast north of Washington. So we flew into Reagan National, rented a car, and drove through Delaware and New Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/177 "2022-09-18T02:11:46Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I’ve only ever been to New Jersey once (and I thought it was pretty), but if I ever got to Holmdel, I’d definitely try to find the Bell Labs, just to see where Penzias and Wilson discovered the echo of the Big Bang. I read a book recently about Bell Labs ([https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797](https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797)) and some of the things that were invented there. I would love to visit the actual site, someday, even if there isn’t much there to see. ---
**Author:** ![RadioWave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/91b2a8/32.png) [@RadioWave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadioWave)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2022, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/178 "2022-09-18T02:27:55Z")
I was at THS when they were filming a lot of these and the one thing that stood out was even the background actors, the “average” people, were all freaking gorgeous. The actual stars were almost painful to look at they were so good looking. You watch a movie and you’re used to people being good looking but when you see them in real life, they’re almost ethereal. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/180 "2022-09-20T02:23:10Z")
It is The Garden State, after all. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2022, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515/181 "2022-09-20T04:34:20Z")
An early scene in _Revenge of the Nerds_ has the heroes being forced to sleep in a gym due to being thrown out of the freshman dorm by the jocks. A little more than a decade after the movie came out I was playing pickup basketball every workday at noon in that same gym. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-filmed-on-a-location-you-know-well/971515.md?page=10)