The Majestic | 2001
- Locations |
- Los Angeles, California
- DIRECTOR |
- Frank Darabont
Following sleeper hit The Shawshank Redemption and then The Green Mile, Frank Darabont went on to make this Fifties drama against the backdrop of the Hollywood blacklist scandal set in Tinseltown and small-town California, featuring some historic real locations and no shortage of movie in-jokes.
It’s the kind of film people complain ‘they don’t make any more’ – a Capraesque drama that might once have starred a young Jimmy Stewart. In 1951, Hollywood screenwriter Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey) gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a long-lost son. Except for the film's "Hollywood opening", the film was mostly shot in the spring of 2001 in Ferndale, California.
Let's begin! Pete goes to watch a B-movie he’s written, ‘Sand Pirates of the Sahara’ at Grauman's Chinese Theatre (officially it’s TLC Chinese Theatre but for me and many others, it will always be Grauman’s Chinese), 6925 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood.
Yes, this is the crowded heart of touristy Hollywood. Nevertheless, don’t be put off by the hustle and the costumed characters eager to be photographed (for a small fee), just enjoy searching out the hand- and footprints of your favourite stars. In The Majestic, we also get to see the cinema’s beautiful interior – don’t neglect to catch a movie here and experience it yourself.
Unfortunately, he soon discovers he's been black-listed, and he's informed by his agents that his film has been canceled, as they navigate the backlot of the Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank.
You can see the studio for yourself at Warner Bros VIP Studio Tour, far more modest and film-focused than the Universal City theme-park approach.
The entrance to the fictitious 'HHS Studios', however, is a bit trickier and a bit of lost Hollywood history. Behind some dressing and quite a bit of CGI, this was the old entrance to what used to be the Goldwyn Lot on Formosa Avenue, West Hollywood – known affectionately as simply ’The Lot’.
The elaborate frontage is added, as are the hills and the Hollywood sign in the background and the row of Warner Bros-style soundstages on the right, but the buildings on the left are the old studio itself.
The 18-acre complex has been known by many names, including the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio, the Pickfair Studio, United Artists Studios, the Samuel Goldwyn Studio and then Warner Hollywood Studios – which is how it got to be used in this film.
Movies made here (in whole or in part) include William Wyler's Wuthering Heights (1939) and The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot (1959), Guys And Dolls (1955) and West Side Story (1961).
Shockingly, and despite protests, new owners demolished and redeveloped parts of the historic complex, including this entrance.
Across from 'The Lot' on Formosa Avenue still stands the Formosa Cafe, 7156 Santa Monica Boulevard, which once acted as a kind of unofficial staff canteen to the studio, hence a regular hangout for the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, among others. It makes sense that this is where Pete, accompanied by his stuffed monkey, would go for a drink after realising he’s been effectively black-listed.
It's a Chinese restaurant and bar, dating from 1939, housed in a 1902 red railroad car and festooned with celebrity photos. After standing shuttered for several years, it came close to being demolished, but a campaign to save it as a historic site resulted in the premises being bought and renovated. I'm happy to report it's back with a vengeance and better than ever. I checked it out recently and was impressed by its rejuvenation. And yes, the frieze of celeb photos remains. You can see more of the Formosa in L.A. Confidential.
In The Majestic, it’s made to look like a cosy bar and when Pete exits to his car, we see the bar is called ‘Coco Bongo Seaside Bar & Grill’ (‘Coco Bongo’ was the name of the nightclub frequented by Carrey in The Mask).
Magically, it also seems to have been moved to the Santa Monica seafront, opposite the Santa Monica Pier, Colorado Avenue at Ocean Avenue.
Driving off through the night, Pete swerves off a bridge and plunges into a river. His underwater struggle to survive was shot at yet another studio, in the water tank of Sony Pictures Studios, 10202 West Washington Boulevard, down in Culver City (and, yes, this – the legendary old MGM Studio – also has the Sony Pictures Studio Tour).
The beach on which he wakes up is College Cove Beach, just to the north of Trinidad State Beach, Stagecoach Road, Trinidad, a town on US-101 nearly 300 miles north of San Francisco on the Northern California coast. Suffering from amnesia, he’s escorted into the nearby town of ‘Lawson, California’, by old-timer Stan (James Whitmore).
This beautiful Victorian town is Ferndale, which is actually about 40 miles south of Trinidad. It’s no stranger to the screen having been featured in Wolfgang Petersen's Outbreak (1995) and in the excellent 1979 TV mini-series of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.
Ferndale, nestled in a valley in Humboldt County near the great California Redwood groves, found prosperity in the 19th century from the dairy industry, which gave rise to its splendidly ornate Victorian buildings nicknamed "Butterfat Palaces.” The entire town is registered as a California Historical Landmark.
Starving, Pete's taken to eat at ‘Mabel’s Diner’. This structure was built for the movie (and later demolished), on an empty lot at 324 Main Street, at the intersection with Ocean Avenue. In the background you can see the Victorian Inn, an impressive building from 1890 built entirely of native Redwood.
After being mistaken for ‘Luke’, the son of Harry (Martin Landau), lost and presumed dead during WWII, he stays on and is convinced to help restore the local movie theatre, ‘The Majestic’ of the title.
The cinema (unfortunately) doesn't exist, and again was built for the film – alongside 361 Main Street, between two existing buildings, at the intersection of what today is Main Street and 4th Street.
Across Ocean Avenue, Main Street becomes Francis Street and here, on what is now a car park opposite the Victorian Inn, 400 Ocean Avenue, the elaborate 'Town Hall' and the war monument were built.
Luke’s grave and Harry’s funeral are both at the historic Ferndale Cemetery, 800-5680 Ocean Avenue, toward the south of town.
‘Luke’ falls head over heels for Adele (Laurie Holden), and the two share a sunset date at the Point Cabrillo Light Station in Mendocino, about 130 miles south of Ferndale. This is the same location where the entire town holds a nighttime celebration for ‘Luke’, with live music and slow dancing.
Inevitably, Luke’s true identity is revealed. Assumed to have gone on the run after being branded a Communist, he's pressured to return to Hollywood to testify at the notorious HUAC hearings (the House Un-American Activities Committee). The hearing is held in what used to be the Terrace Room, now The Elks, grandest and largest space in what was the Park Plaza Hotel, 607 South Park View Street, Westlake, Los Angeles.
Once one of the most frequently used locations in LA, the hotel closed in 1998 and has been renovated as events space The MacArthur (it overlooks MacArthur Park). Coincidentally, the same Terrace Room was used as the ‘Coco Bongo Club’ in The Mask.
Eventually acquitted, Pete walks out on another pointless and inane script conference and sends a telegram to Adele before leaving from Union Station, 800 North Alameda Street, LA’s main rail terminus since the Thirties. Its magnificent interior has appeared in countless films from Blade Runner and The Way We Were to Pearl Harbor and Catch Me If You Can.
It seems the entire population of Lawson – including Adele of course – has turned out to welcome Pete at the ‘Lawson train station’. This is really a train yard, 100 West Laurel Street in Fort Bragg, about 125 miles south of Ferndale. It's now home to the delightfully named Skunk Train, a heritage railroad railway running from Fort Bragg to the interchange with the Northwestern Pacific Railroad at Willits.
The railroad has also been featured in several movies, including silent drama The Signal Tower in 1924, and in 1984's Racing with the Moon, with Sean Penn And Nicolas Cage.
Finally, back to the many movie references – the voices of the crass interfering producers at the dispiriting script conferences are supplied by a clutch of (unseen) A-list Hollywood directors clearly having a lot of fun at the expense of the studio ‘suits’. The voice reading the wartime letter of the real Luke is Matt Damon, who had been in consideration for the Pete Appleton role.
And for the film-within-a-film, ’Sand Pirates of the Sahara’, did you notice that the hero (a cameo from none other than Bruce Campbell) is whacked over the head with the little gold idol discovered by Indie during the opening sequence of Raiders Of The Lost Ark?
Many thanks to Brando Benetton for research & writing for this section.
