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OT: Paul Thomas Anderson Begins Filming His First Film Since "Licorice Pizza"

posted 4 months ago by roger1 (2493)
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I think its known around the OT beat here that I REALLY liked Paul Thomas Anderson's sweet little 1970's nostalgia piece "Licorice Pizza" of 2021. My personal favorite movie of that year. I know lots of reasons why, but I think I would lead with the fact that in its opening scene -- accompanied by a very sweet love song called "July Tree," I realized that I was watching a REAL love story, about the love that can occur only between young people -- very real, very painful -- you never really forget it.

The irony was: though it was an addition to the "canon" of the highly regarded Paul Thomas Anderson ("PTA"), I didn't really have much personal allegiance to the PTA canon. It was like with this one, special outta nowhere little tale -- he got to my heart. And that had not happened with the more mean and depressing "Boogie Nights" or the high prestige art of "There Will Be Blood" and "Phantom Thread." I very much liked Magnolia(with Tom Cruise doing an arthouse role in the same San Fernando Valley neighborhoods where Licorice Pizza would soon take place) and "Inherent Vice" (another LA nostalgia trip, offbeat, funny and sexy.)

Still, the PTA canon doesn't coalesce for me as does the canons of, say -- Alfred Hitchcock. Or Sam Peckinpah. Or Don Siegel. Or The Coens. Or Alexander Payne. Or QT.

So now, in January of 2024, its been announced that not only does PTA have a follow up to Licorice Pizza , its already up and filming.

It does not have a title. The plot has not been revealed (which, I learned retroactively, was how news reports about Licorice Pizza began -- nobody knew what it was about and it was called "Soggy Bottom" for awhile, given its waterbed subplot) though one plot was leaked that involved a young martial arts artist of some sort -- but now all of that has been rejected as "false."

The casting is intriguing:

Leonardo DiCaprio in his first film for PTA. Leo's about as big as you can cast nowadays and from his side, he needs to add a PTA film after all this work for Scorsese and QT. Interesting: PTA cast Leo's FATHER in a small role in Licorice Pizza(as the cool bearded cat who sells the young lead on waterbeds); was that leverage to get Leo for this one?

Sean Penn. Well, Sean Penn was in Licorice Pizza(playing a barely-disguised William Holden with dapper tailoring, a too-deep voice, and that edge of how movie star personalities can disappoint you in real life.) But to the best of my knowledge, Penn never gave one promotional interview or one quote about Licorice Pizza. He left the promotion to the two young leads and Bradley Cooper. And yet -- here is Penn back for more PTA. (PTA had wanted him, long ago, to play the nutcase drug kingpin played by Alfred Molina in Boogie Nights.)

Regina Hall. PTA has said in the past that he wanted to work with Hall. Her casting gives this PTA film some diversity that not all his films have had. As I recall, there was but one African-American player in "Licorice Pizza" -- the young woman who helped sell Leo DiCaprio's dad sell a waterbed(and the concept OF waterbeds as a business) to Cooper Hoffman's young entrepreneur.

I will note in passing that this casting comes in the wake of Alexander Payne casting African-American Da'Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers -- adding a diversity not seen much in Payne movies(About Schmidt, Sideways, Nebraska) -- and that paid off with Randolph getting an Oscar nom (the final pick isn't in as I write this.)

The Location of the film is interesting: filming began last week in Eureka, California and I've read one small internet article about how while no one in that small North Coast city have seen Leo, Sean or Regina around yet, crew members have been using production credit cards at shops and restaurants all over the city.

I've been to Eureka a few times. It is a city next to the ocean and surrounded by redwoods(some of them the giant kind) and yet the city itself is rather financially depressed and rundown. The seaside visuals are dark and gray(its maybe 200 miles north of where Hitchcocks hot The Birds in Bodega Bay.) Much of the timber industry that settled Eureka is gone, what remains is a college town and a lot of marijuana. The whole town smells like marijuana. Its a contact high city. The split between temporary collegians and financially downtrodden townies is palpable.

And into this town have come...Leo and Sean and Regina and PTA and a bunch of crew members boosting the economy.

Clearly, PTA has not returned to Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley for THIS one.

PS. The 1996 movie "Outbreak" with Dustin Hoffman fighting a "Killer COVID" type thing was filmed south of Eureka and there's a great shot near the end showing helicopters high above the redwoods and the ocean -- capturing the region. Jim Careey also filmed the oddball little movie The Majestic in the region.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 4 months ago

PPS. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman came out of "Licorice Pizza" as "young breakout stars" but two years later -- him, yes, her no. And him not even really a star. But he has 3 movies in the can and one in pre-production -- "SNL 1975" -- in which as we wait to see who will play Chevy and Belushi and the rest, Cooper is playing real life executive Dick Ebersol.

And the lovely Alana Haim? Not a movie is listed for her now or in the future. She spent 2022 touring with her sisters in their "Haim" group(somewhat more famous in the wake of LP) . They are working on an album. And Alana was seen a few weeks ago on TV with Bestie Taylor Swift(whom Haim opened for at a few concerts last year) up there in the luxury suite watching Travis Kelce play ball -- being part of the Swiftie Universe will give Alana Haim MUCH more exposure to millions than just a little movie will. She can wait on that movie career for awhile.

[–] roger1 (2493) 4 months ago

Whlie the initial cast for PTA's "mystery project" were announced right away -- Leo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Regina Hall -- more cast members are being announced now and one of them is pretty interesting:

Alana Haim, from the sister pop rock group "Haim" . Alana is currently on view as a Taylor Swift bestie(they were shown at one of those NFL games in the box) , but in 2021, PTA took a shot at making a star out of Alana with his sweet, great 70's youth romance "Licorice Pizza."

The other young new star in that movie was Cooper Hoffman, son of the dead-too-soon Philip Seymour Hoffman (a PTA regular). HE has landed a few roles since Licorice Pizza -- he will be playing NBC executive Dick Ebersol in a movie about SNL's first broadcast in 1975.

But Alana was too busy touring with her sisters worldwide in 2022(after COVID had kept them home for two years), opening for Taylor Swift and...evidently...working on a new album with her sisters.

So it looks like Alana Haim's first movie after debuting in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie will be...another Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

Sounds great too me. If it was good enough for Phillip Seymour Hoffman, it should be good enough for Alana Haim.

And us. She DOES have a great personality.

[–] roger1 (2493) 4 months ago

The new PTA movie wrapped its location filming in Eureka, CA, after 11 days.

There are some photos on the internet of Leo DiCaprio..with droopy moustache and aged hippie drag, shooting a scene on the streets of Eureka(at a phone booth), evidently being watched by big local crowds as he played this outdoor location scene.

Evidently, it is becoming more apparent that this "mystery project" is based on the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel "Vineland," which is set in a Northern California coastal community not unlike Eureka, California where Leo enacted this scene.

Evidently big crowds gathered to watch Leo act - but were silent and respectful. It is always interesting when a "really big star"(which Leo is) deigns to "play their trade" (act) in front of strangers from the public.

His hippie look is right on.

And they finished filming in Eureka after 11 days. Back to the soundstages?

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

And they finished filming in Eureka after 11 days. Back to the soundstages?

---

Nope. On to Sacramento, California -- the State Capitol, where Leo and Alana Haim have been spotted(and him photographed) shooting some scenes by the courthouse there. More scenes are to be filmed in Sacramento this week -- involving shootouts, car chases, and helicopters. The movie's climax?

Whereas it was promoted in advance that Leo would be filming in Eureka, the Sacramento shoot was sort of sprung on everyone. I think they wanted to avoid the crowds watching this time.

In the photos from the Eureka shoot, Leo was in dirty hippie garb and a handlebar moustache. In photos from the Sacramento courthouse shood, Leo is clean shaven and in a suit. "Do the years pass in this story?"

A thought about Alana Haim's movie career. Her first movie was for Paul Thomas Anderson. Her second movie(this one ) is for Paul Thomas Anderson. Evidently not otherwise in demand.

But: Phillp Seymour Hoffman was in PTA's Boogie NIghts, and then he was in PTA's Magnolia, and then he was in PTA's Punch Drunk Love and eventually he was in PTA's The Master. So Alana Haim could have a nice little career ONLY working for PTA.

Sidebar: No name has been given for this PTA film, it is called "The BC project." Why? The only BC I can think of is British Columbia but I don't see much relevance.

I'm reminded that the movie that became Family Plot went into production as "Alfred Hitchcock's 53rd Movie." That's how it was listed in Variety! So PTA and Hitch share a little mystery there. (On the other hand, Family Plot was first announced in Time Magazine articles on BOTH Bruce Dern AND Karen Black as "Alfred Hitchcock's Deceit." But that title was rejected, as was "One Plus One Equals One" -- which described the structure of the movie.)

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

So it looks like Alana Haim's first movie after debuting in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie will be...another Paul Thomas Anderson movie.

Sounds great too me. If it was good enough for Phillip Seymour Hoffman, it should be good enough for Alana Haim

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In that I mean that Phillip Seymour Hoffmann worked for PTA in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and The Master.

"ON Topic" -- Psycho -- I'm reminded that Gus Van Sant's 1998 remake of Psycho used a key number of players from Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough "Boogie Nights" of the year before.

Van Sant's Psycho ended up with Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, and Phillip Baker Hall, from Boogie Nights. I recall jokingly calling Van Sant's movie "Boogie Psycho."

[–] swanstep (2631) 3 months ago

The Location of the film is interesting: filming began last week in Eureka, California.... I've been to Eureka a few times. It is a city next to the ocean and surrounded by redwoods...and yet the city itself is rather financially depressed and rundown. The seaside visuals are dark and gray... Much of the timber industry that settled Eureka is gone.... The whole town smells like marijuana. Its a contact high city. The split between temporary collegians and financially downtrodden townies is palpable.

Great info.! I'm always up for a new or at least rarely used location. Think of what being set in Bloomington Indiana with *its* town vs gown issues gave to Breaking Away (1979), and having driven the coastal highway all the way down from Oregon to LA I'm really partial to the windswept emptiness of a lot of the very northern CA coast period. The US has so many great locations just aching to be used in films really. Go PTA.

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

Much of the timber industry that settled Eureka is gone.... The whole town smells like marijuana. Its a contact high city. The split between temporary collegians and financially downtrodden townies is palpable.

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Great info.! I'm always up for a new or at least rarely used location. Think of what being set in Bloomington Indiana with *its* town vs gown issues gave to Breaking Away (1979),

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That's right. As a movieGOER who has only lived in a a few states in his life, I always enjoy how movies "take us to places we don't know" and allow us to imagine "life in another state in another town"(or another part of the world for international audiences.)

I just thought of two such locations in Hitchcock:

ONE: The tiny Vermont village(it looks like three buildings and a gas pump) in The Trouble with Harry. One figures what matters in this beautiful region is to live in a small house near the woods(as Shirley MacLaine does) or by the water( as Edmund Gwenn does) and the "town" is just for provisions(the general store) and gas. But it was a REAL TOWN. I had a young relative who ended up going to college near there -- I directed him to the town to scope it out after having him lookat the movie and-- he said nothing was changed! They probably preserved the buildings for tourists.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

TWO: Santa Rosa in Shadow of a Doubt. This is a WWII vision of small town America circa 1943, and you could just FEEL the wonderful life(on the surface) of that town -- the cop who directs traffic, the stern lady librarian, the family life of Young Charlie(with her parents who seem more like grandparents -- especially DAD.)

I was last in Santa Rosa in 2010. I drove around, parked, and walked around. Much of the downtown square and buildings are the same as in the movie, though I think some buildings must have been torn down. I found the house of the family. Most "atmospheric" was the train station to which Uncle Charlie arrives in a massive black cloud...and where the train climax begins. There was a Chevy's Mexican restaurant across from it then!

Interesting to me: There is a 1975 social comedy called "Smile" (about a Miss Teenage California tournament there) starring Bruce Dern(a year before Family Plot, just starting his stardom) in a "nice guy" comedy role. THAT movie is set in Santa Rosa, too, but we see (as I recall) NOTHING of the Shadow of a Doubt locations. Its 30 years later and the town has grown out to the suburbs and THAT's where Dern and friends live. (I think the movie only has a couple of shot s in Old Town Santa Rosa.) They go to a "Denny's" chain coffee shop.

CONT

A.

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

and having driven the coastal highway all the way down from Oregon to LA I'm really partial to the windswept emptiness of a lot of the very northern CA coast period.

--

You've driven it, you know how beautiful it can be. As I recall, the coastal highway from Oregon to LA isn't always in a straight line -- there are stretches with no road and of course San Francisco is a big detour -- but, there are enough different spots along the way that quite a few movies have been made along the way -- including several Hitchoccks -- though he had the northern California coast sub for England in Rebecca and in Suspicion(the final bogus suspense car ride of Grant and Fontaine.)

Vertigo famously starts in San Francisco and then goes all the way down to Carmel(near where Hitchcock had a second home on a hillside looking down on Monterey Bay.) But one film later in North by Northwest, the crashing waves of the shoreline near Carmel DOUBLED as the waves near .. Glen Cove, New York. (everal critics noted: "there are NO rocks with crashing waves near Glen Cove." Ah. but those waves made the scene more atmospheric as the bad guys trundled drunk Cary Grant into the Mercedes.

Vertigo happens a lot SOUTH of San Franciso. The Birds happens about 60 miles NORTH of San Francisco(Hitchcock got a hotel there and was driven to Bodega Bay on each location day.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

But how about some OTHER NorCal coastal uses of scenery, starting from the top and moving south:

Eureka -- the new PTA project, untitled save for "The BC project."

The Redwoods near Eureka -- no town is shown -- but in "Return of the Jedi," the Ewoks live there and Lucas shot a high speed special effects sky cycle chase using the redwoods as backdrop.

Ferndale (just south of Eureka) -- Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman; The Majestic with Jim Carrey.

Mendocino -- "Cabot Cove" on Murder She Wrote; but also East Coast ocean coastal towns in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" and "Summer of '42." (There is still a church steeple in that town where a boy hung from it high above the ground in "Russians.")

Bodega Bay(The Birds, natch...in which a radio announcer notes some bird attacks on nearby...Santa Rosa, inland.)

San Francisco(tons of movies)

San Mateo -- some of the Bullitt car chase ends on the freeway near here, Bullitt finds a woman murdered at a motel celebrating Mother's Day 1968 soon -- says the hotel marquee -- and I think Scottie visits Madeleine's grave there.

San Juan Bautista: where the church without a bell tower can be found. Tricked ya! chortles Hitchcock from heaven.

Carmel: We don't see the town, but Scottie kisses Madeline near the trees and ocean there. We saw a LOT more of Carmel in Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me, plus Monterey and its pier to the north.

Heading futher south, one finds the Santa Barbara area where the guys drive around in Sideways.

...and that'll do it. I'm sure there's a lot more locations on the Nor Cal/Central Cal coast.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

The US has so many great locations just aching to be used in films really. Go PTA.

--

Turns out he wasn't done when he filmed in Eureka. And he isn't done as I post this.

He keeps taking cast and crew south in California.

He was in the state capitol city of Sacramento for a few days.

He shot some scenes about 45 miles south of Sacramento in the more rough inland town of Stockton (made not quite famous as a "dive town" of failed boxers in John Huston's Fat City of 1972.)

And he is now way down in Southern California...near the beach and not too far from Disneyland...shooting at the Mission San Juan CAPISTRANO -- which looks a lot like the Mission San Juan Bautista in Vertigo. Still no bell tower.

So this "mystery project" takes Leo and company from the north of California down to the south.

I wonder if PTA will be heading further south to San Diego and the Mexican border at Tijuana (I've read no such thing, just speculating. Maybe San Juan Capistrano -- where the swallows return to -- is far enough.)

But wait, there's more....

...I was actually there for some of this.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

I have debated discussing this, but hell, why not?

With these articles noting where PTA and company were to BE filming this movie -- with closed streets listed --I gave it some thought. I know people in Sacramento, I have some control over my schedule...why not go there "on other business" and carve some time out to watch the filming?

So I did.

This is not all that rare for me.

A few years ago when it was announced that QT was going to film some of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on a 1969-dressed Hollywood Boulevard...I went there(tying it into a trip elsewhere in Southern California.)
I didn't see filming, but I saw the re-dressed street and anticpated how it would look a year later.

A couple of years ago, having enjoyed the discovery of Alana Haim and her sisters in Licorice Pizza, I grabbed a younger person and went to one of their concerts. Each of the three sisters takes one part of the stage - Alana left, Danielle center, Este right. My seats were near Alana. So it was like sitting near a movie star.

And way back on May 5, 1975, when the LA Times announced that Hitchcock was to start filming that day on Family Plot(no title yet), I snuck my way onto the lot and walked on into Hitchocck's office and announced I was writing an article for a college paper on the film could I watch the first day's shooting?. Hitch wasn't in his office, but his secretary informed me that filming had been delayed for a week -- to May 12, 1975 -- because "he is doing special voice tests for Barbara Harris as the medium." She took me very seriously, if warily -- and I vamoosed the office and got out of dodge. But i DID that...obsessed a bit, I was. This Hitchocck movie was filming in Los Angeles(not London as Frenzy had), I lived in Los Angles -- why not TRY?

So there's always a little bit of "movie obsession" still left in me, and I went to watch PTA and cast and crew in action.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

I went on the downtown Sacramento locations twice over two days, but I had to do other things while I was there. Also, the long WAITS for filming ANYTHING took forever. So I only gave the show about two hours each day.

I was able to talk to the security men and women near the shoot -- their job was to keep me at a distance from the show (along with others), but one of them told me, "I think they are working with stunt people today, doing some action, no stars." And sure enough I didn't see Leo or Alana. (They have been reported as being on these locations, but not Sean Penn.) I figured -- "action scenes? Must be second unit. No PTA.) But then I SAW PTA. Pretty close to me, really, talking to an African American actress I didn't recognize. It wasn't Regina Hall - maybe her stunt double?

I watched PTA physically block out the scene and then he did that great thing youngish directors do - he used his thumbs and upwards fingers to "create a viewfinder" and to guide his crew on the shot of the African-American actress/stuntperson She was to run across a rather seedy downtown park called "Cesar Chavez Plaza." And she did it, several times, always in the same direction.

I kept watching and a man approached me: "Are you one of the extras?" BOY, I almost wanted to say yes but then I figured I would not "fit" the rather hippie-like people around me, so I said no.

I got very close to PTA as he continued to talk to his actress/stuntwoman, but as I raised my cellphone for a shot, I was approached by a guy who said "I can't have you doing that, or I'll have to become a dick." Eh...I didn't need a photo of PTA anyway.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

What was fun about this moment -- what mattered I guess -- was a flashback to 1975 near the Family Plot set(oh, I forgot, I walked onto the Adamson House set that day, thinking it was a Columbo set) and the feeling that here I was still "sneaking around a shoot" and in this case, actually seeing "an auteur at work." Better still: the man who made Licorice Pizza! A movie to which I felt personal connection. I don't think I'd have felt the same way if he had ONLY been the man who made "The Master" at that point I didn't much connect with The Master. I suppose it would be the difference between seeing Hitchcock direct soon after he made Under Capricorn versus soon after he made Psycho. A different "personal attraction to the filmmaker."

They shot some footage of the African American actress/stuntwoman sitting huddled with some "hippies"(the time era of this movie is under wraps) at Cesar Chavez park and I headed off to where my car was parked. I turned a corner and then another corner and -- there was PTA "pre-directing" a bunch of hippie YOUNG MEN in a parking garage. PTA loked at me warily, as I guess all directors do at strangers when forced on public location. His look was "didn't I just see this guy over at the park?" He must have been driven over to this new location because he beat me there. There was no camera around; PTA seemed to be rehearsing this bunch of guys RUNNING out of the parking garage.

That was Day One for me. Day Two was more interesting. I followed the cues to an area where they were filming a basic action sequence: a small SUV filled with hippie types in an alley, burns rubber, tires screeching and races down the alley to the next street ..and beyond.

I watched them film this screeching car -- which I took for a "getaway car" (bank robbery? The alley WAS next to a real bank) -- three times in one hour. They kept having to bring the car back to its first place. The camera apparatus was ON the car -- in the movie, WE will travel along on this superfast getaway.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

I decided that it would be productive to walk all the way around the bank to the next steet to see how the shot ENDED...when did the getaway car stop on "CUT?" or some such.

I positioned myself on the sidewalk looking at the alley where it emptied onto a (cleared out) m ain street. The man there(not in uniform) said: "You will have to step back a bit, a van is about to come barrelling down this alley at top speed." I replied, "Excellent!" I had my camera ready this time and heard "ACTION" and watched as the van came roaring up in front of me (got the shot) and then bounced into the main street and kept going down the NEXT alley before "cut!" was yelled and stop.)

I will add that PTA -- personally supervised this scene at the start point.

And that was about it. Nothing really "kicked in" for more filming that second day and I had other things to do.

Some notes in passing:

Always amazing: Great big trucks lined three blocks for this production, with many people just sitting in or near them. A "typical Hollywood production" -- Warner Brothers in this case. Teamsters, I assumed. You follow these long lines of trucks and all these people and then finally you find: a much smaller group of people actually shooting the movie.

Funny: They blocked off Cesar Chavez Park so you couldn't walk through it while they filmed, and I watched a very irate, possibly high couple argue with the security: "Whaddya MEAN they're filming a movie! I don't give a s--t(then more obscenity, then more obscenity)..we need to GO HOME. You're blocking our way!" Security calmed the couple down rather than grabbed them and finally when a scene was done shooting said "OK, go ahead and walk now, but please be quick." The response: more obscenities. Some people just don't give movie crews much respect.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

This one made the internet: to film these Cesar Chavez Park scenes and some others, Sacramento officials "cleared all the homeless out." Which led to controversial articles about how "Holllywood could clear out the homeless for a day, but not regular people." And yet I met a young woman during this "shoot" who was MAD that the homeless had been kicked out. No matter -- there actually WERE some homeless still hanging around the park. I guess the crew gave up -- they provided local color.

In summary:

In the days before I arrived, they had filmed Leo (with Alana Haim nearby) leaving the downtown Sacramento courthouse and then gunfire made the characters scatter.

I personally witnessed the filming of (1) a getaway car screeching down an alley; (2) a woman running through a civic plaza and (3) young men being rehearsed to run out of a parking garage.

If these sequences make it into the final movie, it will be interersting to see how they cut together because I swear, everything I saw being filmed looked like it would only last 2 minutes on screen , total.

I'll be interested to see this footage turn into something as polished and vibrant as PTA has done in the past.

BTW, this mystery project evidently IS based on Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland" and evidently DOES feature a "young female martial arts expert" character -- I had thought the project was EITHER Vineland OR the young female martial arts story -- I guess its both?

We shall see.

[–] swanstep (2631) 3 months ago

John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) used Point Reyes; East of Eden (1955) used Mendocino (which is up near Fort Bragg) to great effect both its rich bits and its down and out bits. But I've never seen Morro Beach or Crescent City or Point Arena in a film...

Hell, back in the day when I was trying very half-heartedly to do a bit of screenwriting I thought the easiest thing to do was channel NbNW and 'connect the dots' between a bunch of nifty locations. Obviously underfilmed locations seemed to be all around me. It seemed crazy to me that no thriller had used the Crazy Horse Monument or The Grand Coulee Dam or The Columbia River Gorge or The strange German village, Leavenworth, up in the Cascade mountains near Seattle, and so on. Unfortunately Ernest Lehman's talent eluded me.

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) used Point Reyes; East of Eden (1955) used Mendocino (which is up near Fort Bragg) to great effect both its rich bits and its down and out bits.

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Yes...those movies, too..did not East of Eden take place (as a novel) NEAR the Carmel/Monterey area but inland..in Salinas? Any filming there?

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But I've never seen Morro Beach or Crescent City or Point Arena in a film...

--

Fertile filming territory. Somebody should try them!

--

The Big Sur area just south of Carmel -- with twisty cliff roads --was used for some of the Liz/Dick movie "The Sandpiper," and on TV, Mad Men's Don Draper visited an EST llike retreat there.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

Hell, back in the day when I was trying very half-heartedly to do a bit of screenwriting I thought the easiest thing to do was channel NbNW and 'connect the dots' between a bunch of nifty locations.

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Ha. Well, its fun when a "road movie" has the budget to visit various places.

From my readings, when most(all?) movies have a mix of location filming and soundstage filming, the director gets all the location work done FIRST.

That's what PTA is doing right now with his California locales for "The BC Project."

Eva Marie Saint hosted a video documentary about the filming of North by Northwest(now on the DVD) in which she detailed that THAT movie followed Roger's itinerary with location shooting in NYC(Plaza Hotel, UN), Long Island(Glen Cove mansions), on the 20 Century Limited, in Chicago(train station, Drake Hotel) and on to Rapid City South Dakota(no footage there) and Mount Rushmore(the real one before filmng at the fake soundstage mock-up.)

After all that "real" location shooting, NXNW went back to California and 100 miles north of Hollywood to film Cary Grant running from the crop duster(the open spaces near Bakersfield filling in for Indiana.)
Interesting: the only actors Hitchocck needed to take up there were Cary Grant and Malcolm Atterbury(the farmer across the road.)

Also interesting: the next year in Psycho, Janet Leigh buys her second car in Bakersfield(the city limit sign is shot by second unit) so she is "near" where "Indiana" was shot in NXNW but...the actual car lot (supposed to be in Bakersfield) was actually shot a coupla miles from Universal Studios in North Hollywood. "It all connects.'

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

ALSO interesting: while the location shooting for NXNW was extensive and pretty much coast to coast(East to West): NYC, Glen Cove, Chicago, Mount Rushmore, Bakersfield, the location shooting for Psycho was minimal:

Phoenix Arizona(all second unit, no Hitchocck, no actors sent.)
North Hollywood car lot next to Universal.
Side road next to HIghway 99 , near the "nothing" town of Gorman north of Los Angeles about 90 miles(cop stop.)
Bakersfield, CA (all second unit, pulling into the city to the car lot.)

And that was it EXCEPT that Hitchcock sent a camera car with cameras point out the front AND the back to capture all the process footage of Janet Leigh driving north to Bakersfield, Shasta County and the Bates Motel.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

It seemed crazy to me that no thriller had used the Crazy Horse Monument or The Grand Coulee Dam or The Columbia River Gorge or The strange German village, Leavenworth, up in the Cascade mountains near Seattle, and so on.

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The Crazy Horse monument isn't all that far from Mount Rushmore. Some years ago, I took a solo trip to FINALLY see Mount Rushmore on my own -- after literally DECADES of being unable to convince parents, family, friends or significant others to go up there with me. I had to do it myself, but trips like that can be most liberating.

I toured Mount Rushmore during the bright day and then went back that night to see a "night show" with the faces illuminated against the night sky(thus bringing back that "North by Northwest climax" feeling.)

But I drove to other places over a couple of days up there and THIS was funny to me...I started getting USED TO Mount Rushmore, driving back and forth in front of it, past it, BEHIND it...it was just THERE.

I went to the Crazy Horse monument, which is just...crazy. Pretty much three generations of one family(the first generation now dead) trying to build another Mount Rushmore BY THEMSELVES, using buckets to carry granite down after chipping away with pickaxes and dynamite. They've got some of the face, some of the upper torso, a little of this, a little of that, but after 70 years or so...only about 80% of the monument is done. Its a craze mission -- a movie could be made about THAT. I think its a monument TO craziness now.

I also drove over to Deadwood and enjoyed saloon drinks and local history(the TV series is now embedded in the town's culture.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

I had no time to drive to the Black Hills. Maybe next time.

But I DID stay in the hotel only REFRENCED in NXNW, by James Mason at Glen Cove: "The Sheraton-Johnson Hotel in RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA." (Oh, how Mason said it.) The hotel remains, but it is no longer a Sheraton-Johnson. In the lobby, behind the front desk is a plaque with Hitchcock/s famous profile and a notation of when he stayed there to film NXNW. The hotel also has photographs from " How the West Was Won"(1962) which filmed a buffalo stampede neraby.

The most surprising thing about this Rapid City hotel is that it had a very sophisticated rooftop restaurant and wine bar -- San Francisco near Mount Rushmore -- with a sweeping view of enough "night light" to suggest a real cosmopolitan city.

CONT

[–] roger1 (2493) 3 months ago

Unfortunately Ernest Lehman's talent eluded me.

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Oh, likely not. He was just "the right man at the right time" when Hitchcock needed a writer and decided to make his "Mount Rushmore movie" when "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" project collapsed. Your writing here evidences that kind of talent.

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Speaking of Ernest Lehman and(above) Gene Kelly:

I bought Barbra Streisand's hefty (almost 1,000 page) autobio. It is a book of some ego, to be sure, but also a certain practical sensiblity about her own foibles and some dish about the people she met along the way.

When Streisand signed for the big budget musical "Hello, Dolly" for 1969 release, the director was Gene Kellly and the writer-producer was...Ernest Lehman. Babs was disappionted in her "musical idol" Kelly(he seemed at once scared of her as an "old guy" and a bully to others) and found Ernest Lehman to be her protector and advisor against both Kelly and star Walter Matthau (of whom Babs said, "I was too young for my part and he was too old for his part.")

Matthau and Babs famously fought on the Hello Dolly set, and she gives an example of how -- during a very funny scene with the two of them(her fave scene in the movie and mine too) -- their dinner together at Harmona Gardens" -- "Matthau kept blowing his lines and throwing me off my rhythm. He had his lines down in other scenes."

This was believable to me, because I once read an interview with Goldie Hawn about how Matthau disliked her on Cactus Flower(the same year as Hello Dollly -- Matthau WAS a star for awhile).and how he purposely blew his lines and threw off HAWN's rhythm in their scenes together. Oh, well -- Hawn won an Oscar for that movie...and I always liked Matthau on screen -- his co-star problems are "internal affairs."