TRAVEL
Sunday, October 7, 2012 • B4
MIAMI VALLEY SUNDAY NEWS • WWW.TROYDAILYNEWS.COM
People pose for pictures and a car makes its way down Lombard Street with Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill in the background in San Francisco Sept. 27.
A sailboat makes its way past Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. San Francisco has a long history as a favorite site for filmmakers and the movie buffs who want to see the spots where their favorite scenes took place.
Rock, bridge, bay Tour San Francisco’s movie landmarks SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The spot where Jimmy Stewart saved Kim Novak in “Vertigo” is at Fort Point, just under the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. A few miles down the bay is Alcatraz, where Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery prevented missiles from launching and Clint Eastwood may or may not have escaped. Up on shore, there’s Coit Tower, City Hall, the Transamerica Pyramid, all those hills that have been the setting for so many chase scenes. Filled with iconic landmarks, breathtaking scenery and a wide range of locations, San Francisco has a long history as a favorite site for filmmakers and the movie buffs who want to see the places where their favorite scenes were filmed. “So many people are so familiar with the icons, with the landmarks of San Francisco,” said Bryan Rice, owner of San Francisco Movie Tours. “You can show the Golden Gate Bridge, you can show the Transamerica Pyramid in the background, show these different places where people are familiar with and it draws people in.” The Bay Area’s moviemaking history goes back to the beginning of film, to Eadweard Muybridge’s study of a horse galloping in Palo Alto, widely regarded as the first motion picture ever made. Charlie Chaplin’s movies and many of the first silent films were shot near San Francisco, along with parts of “The Jazz Singer,” the first “talkie” released in 1927. Alfred Hitchcock loved shooting in the Bay Area, as did George Lucas and Clint Eastwood. It’s easy to see why: The bay, the bridge, the landmarks, and a variety of elevations for interesting angles to shoot from. Locations are diverse: downtown, the waterfront, the Painted Ladies Victorian homes, Chinatown, the gritty Tenderloin. Film noir can be shot in the fog; a screwball comedy can bounce along hilly streets. Many films shot in San Francisco are written for the city, so it, in a sense, becomes a character in the movie. “All the producers I talk to say they would love to shoot here because visually it’s such a beautiful place that it makes anyone’s film better looking,” said Susannah Greason Robbins, executive director of the San Francisco Film Commission. But the number of big-production movies shot in San Francisco has tapered off with the rise of
AP PHOTOS/ERIC RISBERG
A man stands beside Fort Point and looks out at the fog-covered Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This is the spot under the Golden Gate Bridge where Jimmy Stewart saved Kim Novak in “Vertigo.” digital technology. Instead of going on location, producers can recreate the city’s look in studios and with computers at less cost. It’s also cheaper to shoot in other locales, from the American South to Canada, with some states offering better tax breaks for production companies than California does. “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” released in 2011, was set in San Francisco but shot in British Columbia. San Francisco still attracts movie-makers, with more than 100 films shot here in the last decade and 16 last year, but more are independent or from small local companies than in the past. Still the city’s long history of film offers plenty of iconic spots to visit. Here are just a few. • ALCATRAZ: In “Birdman of Alcatraz,” ”Escape from Alcatraz,” ”Murder in the First,” ”The Rock,” ”The Enforcer.” A federal penitentiary from 1934-63, “The Rock” housed notorious criminals including Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and James “Whitey” Bulger. Now a national park, Alcatraz offers visitors a chance to tour the prison, including a look at one of
the cells portrayed in Eastwood’s “Escape from Alcatraz,” with the concrete chipped away behind the vent. Round-trip ferry to Alcatraz, $28-$32 including audio tour, every half-hour starting around 9 a.m.: http://www.alcatraz cruises.com/. • FORT POINT, GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE: In “Foul Play,” ”Dopamine,” ”High Anxiety,” ”Petulia,” ”Point Blank,” ”Vertigo,” ”The Presidio.” Built to protect the San Francisco Bay from Confederate and foreign attack during the Civil War, Fort Point is where Stewart saved Novak in “Vertigo,” right at the base. The bridge has also been blown up countless times on film, including in “XMen 3” and “Monsters vs. Aliens.” Best view is from the north side back toward the city. • COIT TOWER: In “Boys & Girls,” ”After the Thin Man,” ”Dr. Dolittle,” ”Sister Act 2,” ”The Enforcer,” ”The Presidio,” ”The Rock,” ”Innerspace.” The narrow, white concrete column atop Telegraph Hill has been a part of San Francisco’s skyline since 1933 and offers spectacular
views of the bay and the city. Coit Tower has been in the backdrop of numerous movies filmed in San Francisco and was called “vaguely phallic” by Tyne Daly’s character in the “Dirty Harry” movie, “The Enforcer.” It’s been a place to watch movies, too, with projectors set up to show films on the side of tower. Observation deck, $7 for nonresidents, $5 seniors and youth (12-17), $2 kids (5-11), http://sfrecpark.org/CoitTower.aspx. • CITY HALL: In “A View to a Kill,” ”Bedazzled,” ”Bicentennial Man,” ”Class Action,” ”Final Analysis,” ”Foul Play,” ”Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” ”Jagged Edge,” ”Magnum Force,” ”Milk,” ”The Rock,” ”The Wedding Planner.” City Hall has one of the largest domes in the world and replaced a structure destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. It was used extensively at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and Sean Penn, in his Academy Award-winning portrayal of gay rights activist Harvey Milk, gave an impassioned speech on its steps. • ALAMO SQUARE: In
“Murder in the First,” ”Nine Months,” ”The Conversation,” ”Mrs. Doubtfire.” The neighborhood and park are among the most photographed spots in San Francisco because of the Painted Ladies, a row of Victorian houses facing the park on Steiner Street. The Ladies have been a favorite of film and television producers and were used in the opening shot for the sitcom “Full House.” The house where Robin Williams dressed up as Mrs. Doubtfire posing as his ex-wife’s nanny is north of the park at Steiner and Broadway. • WHERE TO EAT: One of the city’s oldest restaurants, John’s Grill, 63 Ellis St., was a setting in author Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon.” The interior looks just as you would picture it from the book, filled with original period furnishings. The walls are covered with photos of famous customers and the second floor has a replica of the Maltese Falcon, along with movie stills and foreign translations of the novel. A great place to get steaks or a few cocktails while taking in the atmosphere.
Report: Indianapolis visitors pay high taxes for travel INDIANAPOLIS (AP) —aAVisitors pay among the highest travel taxes in the nation when they come to Indianapolis 17 percent on hotel rates, 15 percent on rental cars and 9 percent on meals. That adds up to an average single-day, combined travel tax of $34.19, according to the Global Business Travel Association, which ranked Indianapolis No. 8 on its list of the worst 10 cities
for travel taxes. The rankings are based on the amount of hotel, car rental and meal taxes paid by travelers in the top 50 travel destinations in the United States. Although Indianapolis officials say the city is still making great gains in visitors and is competitive with its convention-city peers’ taxes, some in the hospitality industry say those taxes hurt business and are calling for them to
be rolled back. “We just keep inching up,” said John Livengood, president of the Indiana Hotel and Lodging Association and president and CEO of the Indiana Restaurant Association. “If we want people to come here and spend money and help out, we are kind of shooting ourselves in the foot.” But the reasons for the increased travel taxes are the exact reasons business-
es in Livengood’s industry are thriving, said Sen. Luke Kenley, RNoblesville, who helped craft the tax-funding plans. The taxes help fund Lucas Oil Stadium and an expanded Indiana Convention Center and help to get the Capital Improvement Board, which operates the city’s sports stadiums and the convention center, out of debt. “All these hotels and restaurants are doing a
booming business because of this extra business coming into the city,” Kenley told The Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/T15R6F ). “It’s not like nobody is going to go to St. Elmo’s because you have to pay a 9 percent food and beverage tax.” And it’s not like people aren’t going to choose Indianapolis as a convention city because of the taxes, said Chris Gahl, spokesman with Visit Indy,
the city’s convention and visitor association. “Although hotel tax and tourism tax is a piece of the overall puzzle that drives a meeting planner’s decision in selecting a city, there are hundreds of other variables,” Gahl said. “Quality of hotels. Walkability of the city. Things to do culturally. Amenities after hours. Convention center square footage. Overall affordability of the city.”