In <b>Shawshank Redemption</b>, that beautiful Gothic prison is a disused prison in Mansfield, Ohio, where my parents live. The real prison is right next door. All the interiors were shot in a warehouse right across the street from the toy factory where my father and I worked together one summer, too. I’m trying to care about what’s happening, but the street scenes happen in the older sections of Mansfield, and I keep going, “Hey, I’ve bought doughnuts there!”
Much of Patch Adams was filmed on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, plenty of it in the building next door to where I worked. They even scouted our building for possible scenes before filming started. I’ve never seen the movie, but I’m sure I’d be pointing out campus buildings all through it.
In upcoming films:
The movie “The Shipping News” with Judi Dench and Kevin Spacey was filmed alot in Halifax, Nova Scotia (he mentioed leaving his Tux there at the Oscars). One location is a block from my place. Also a new Harrison Ford movie was filmed here. Can’t recall the title, but it involves a Russian submarine, which is actually an old Canadian sub modified to look Russian.
Passing through our den while my mother and sister watched “You’ve Got Mail”, I noticed Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan coming out of a movie theater (out of a screening room into the main hallway). I knew exactly where they were immediately, which was jarring for an interior shot - it’s the Loew’s on 68th Street and Broadway.
Dragonheart, a really bad movie, was filmed at Spis’ Castle in eastern Slovakia. It is a gorgeous site, I’m not surprised that someone decided to use it. However, the movie is allegedly set in England. I doubt there is anyplace in England that looks like the Tatras mountains. I only sat through the movie once, but the set kept screaming “Slovensko! Slovensko!” while the characters were babbling on about Celts and Saxons. Very disorienting.
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*Originally posted by Jack Batty *
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I remember that…I also remember when they filmed Message in a Bottle up here somewhere (I forget) and that was a really big deal too…personally I disliked that movie quite a bit. I know that Lake Placid was supposed to be set in Maine too, I’m not sure if they filmed it here, I just recall how pissed I was when they made all these stereotypes about Mainers being hicks and stuff. Oh well.
One time I was driving around Bel Air CA for some reason and all of a sudden I slammed on my brakes and I was looking at the BEVERLY HILLBILLIES house. As I recall the driveway didn’t look as long as on the show but it was still a way back from the street.
I went past the storefront of Mystic Pizza many times before I realized the movie was named after it, and not the other way around. I hadn’t seen the flick at that point, and had always assumed the “Mystic” in its title had some deeper significance.
While living in that same area, the woman who would later be Mrs. BGH excitedly pointed out some scenes in a little-known Nick Nolte/Debra Winger flick called Everybody Wins that were, to my surprise, just a few blocks away. Turned out the whole movie was set in that town. She also seconds the recollections of “Slap Shot” mentioned above, and adds similar ones for “All The Right Moves” and “Deer Hunter.”
I work in North Chelmsford. I’ve been to that library but I’ve never heard of Zesty’s, is it worth tracking down?
The scene in War Games where they’re rushing to catch the ferry was filmed in Steilacoom, Washington, a few miles from where I grew up. The Hand That Rocked the Cradle and part of Three Fugitives were filmed on the north side of Tacoma, in fact I watched them film the shootout scene in the latter. And I think 10 Things I Hate About You was made at Stadium High School in the same neighborhood, but I haven’t seen it.
The Distinguished Gentleman used the Pennsylvania capital building as a stand-in for the U.S. Capital, and I used to live almost across the street from it in Harrisburg.
A couple you missed - “Creator” with Peter O’Toole and “Killer Klowns.” Frankly both pretty forgetable films. I really think there was at least one more really big film made there in the last fifteen years or so, but I can’t remember what it was.
I grew up in L.A., so I took locations pretty much for granted. A couple of notable ones I haven’t seen here:
The L.A. County Arboritum in Arcadia was very heavily used by T.V. shows in the seventies and eighties, most famously for Fantasy Island. I haven’t seen it lately, probably because of increased budgets.
Whittier High School - Marty’s school in Back to the Future was Richard Nixon’s as well.
I was really impressed with the way Cal Poly Pomona looked in Gattacca. Much better than USC does in virually every university shoot.
Well, besides the Logans Run/water gardens thing that was already mentioned…
A great deal of walker, Texas Ranger. Much of what is supposed to be filmed in Dallas is actually filmed in Downtown Fort Worth.
In Born on the Forth of July, there is a scene where Tom Cruise is in a little bar with Eidie Brickel singing a Bob Dylan tune. That was filmed in the H.O.P(house of pizza), a old college hippie hangout right off the TCU campus. I met the future Mrs. Bdgr there, at a poetry reading, right about the same place Tom was in the movie, and got her phone number right by the stage. The place had been there forever, and was a real landmark, but someone bought it out, ran it into the ground, and then sold it to someone out of state. It eventually got completely gutted, and now is just another dive bar called the Aardvark(the owners wanted some outrageous amount for the name The HOP, so the name has changed a couple of times now. Sad really.
The on-site shooting for Dead Poets Society took place in -Delaware-; the school used was St. Andrews (Episcopal) school in Middletown Delaware; it used to be all-boys but is now co-ed. They also did some shots in the New Castle Delaware area. New Castle has been used in exteriors for other films as well, though I can’t seem to recall which ones exactly right now! 
tarragon
Well, the movie The Wizard of Loneliness was filmed in my hometown. They changed around Main Street to do so, it was weird. The pizza place became a gas station, the craft store became a pet shop, and other such changes. My father and sister are actually extras in the movie. I was almost a stand-in for the main character, but was too young.
Also, Me, Myself, and Irene was filed in my state, and some scenes were filmed in a town 10 minutes from me. They actually did a little filming in my town (a shot of Jim Carry’s stunt double riding his motorcycle down Main Street) but it wasn’t used in the movie. The scene at the amusement park place (I think that’s what it was, I haven’t seen the movie) was actually the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory.
What Lies Beneth was filmed on Lake Champlain, about 45 minutes from where I live. Some scenes were also done in towns closer to me as well.
It’s fun to go to the theatre and recognize the places in the movies.
In Arlington Road, towards the end, when Tim Robbins is taking the kid out of the museum, they’re supposed to be in Washington DC but it’s actually the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It’s just down the street from Rice University . . . I recognized the traffic circle and the butterfly pyramid.
Also, parts of Rushmore were filmed in residential areas in the Houston area that I used to drive through frequently.
Cool. What area? I didn’t know Rushmore was filmed here. Also filmed in the same area was The Chase starring Charlie Sheen. It was supposed to be set in CALIF. but was filmed in Houston. It went by the fountains (and probably the same traffic circle) near Herman Hospital.
Since I live in Niagara Falls, ON, I’m constantly recognizing locations from my area in various films. Movies such as Niagara, Superman II, Camilla, etc., etc. all feature familiar locations to me. However, my favourite is still from The Dead Zone.
In the movie, Christopher Walken is brought to a murder scene in a tunnel in the hopes that his psychic ability will pick up clues the police have been unable to uncover. This tunnel is known locally as the Screaming Tunnels and has a rather morbid history in its own right.
Many years ago, one of the houses in the area across the street from the tunnel caught on fire. Tragically, 2 children who were home alone were engulfed in the flames and ran from the house into the tunnel before they burned to death. Local legend has it that you can still hear their screams if you go there on the night they died.
It was a favourite pastime for kids in my end of the city to ride their bikes down there at night and try to scare the crap out of each other. In retrospect, the only noise I ever heard was howling from the wind, but damn when I was a kid I was positive I heard their cries.
::shudder::
Anyways, I think the use of the tunnel was a masterstroke by Cronenberg. It certainly leant the scene a whole new layer of creepiness for those who knew the place.
When Myra Breckenridge premiered, I saw it at a theater on Hollywood Boulevard. As the film opened, I recognized the location of the first scene.
So did everyone else. It was the scene we passed through on the way in – the front of the same theater!
Now, I wonder. Did the producers know it was going to premiere at that location and they planned the shot in advance? Or was it just a coincidence?
OK, this doesn’t count yet, but scenes from The Life of David Gale were recently filmed across the street from my dorm at the University of Texas. Too bad I was out of town that day…[GRUMBLE]
It’s somewhere around where Greenbriar and Sunset intersect. I’m afraid that I don’t know the exact street that they filmed it on, but if you ever go there you’ll definitely recognize it.
I remembered another one. In One Day in September, a documentary about the terrorism at the 1972 Olympics, they showed the restaurant in the Munich train station where the terrorists ate on the night before. I remember walking right by that place.