Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is “Films Filmed Near You”, and I think people will be surprised by how many there are. But first, WWW Wednesday!

WWW Wednesday

WHAT have you finished recently? Heroes, Stephen Fry.

WHAT are you reading now? Truman, David McCullough. I’m getting there!

WHAT are you reading next? Something that’s not so big it has its own satellite.

MOVIES FILMED NEAR ME

(1) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, 1969. This is a special film for Selmians, because it makes heavy use of downtown Selma, filming in buildings that no longer exist, or showing streetscapes and interiors that are radically changed.

The most prominent, of course, is the Hotel Albert — that magnificent red building in the background. It was modeled on the Palace of the Doges in Venice, Italy, and if you are familiar with Selma’s reputation today (as a poor and rapidly shrinking site chiefly used by politicians for photo ops every campaign season), the fact that the city could attract such wealth and investment may be surprising. In the late 19th century, though, Selma was so prominent it claimed both of Alabama’s US senators, Edmund Pettus and John Morgan.

And then there’s this place, which began — believe it or not — as a steam laundry, but later became a series of restaurants. While the interior has changed a bit, you can stand in this exact spot and see that door. Only, these days it leads to a larger kitchen instead of the billards-and-illicit-whisky room. The current restaurant is called the Downtowner, and it’s a good place for meat-and-three and local color.

(2) Payday, 1973. This film is about a…country music singer whose life of excess is destroying him and all those around him. The most interesting bit for locals is when he goes to a local restaurant, and they have a gigantic map of Old Cahaba (the abandoned state capital 10 miles down the river from us) in the background. I have asked all the old-timers I know what happened to that map (it’s too big to disappear), but no leads. This film is funny to watch as a local because there are repeated bits of “Wait a minute, how did he get to the Flamingo from that place, on THAT road?!”

(3) Blue Sky,1994. This Tommy Lee Jone movie shows some of downtown Selma’s Water Avenue historical district during a chase scene, but it’s most notable for filming on the Air Force base and showing off the medical facilities there before they’d fallen into disrepair. Fun fact: when Jessica Lange was in town filming this, she lived in a great yellow house that I’ve dogsat for many times over the last few years.

(4) Body Snatchers, 1993. Filmed on said Air Force base, but I’ve not seen it and can’t tell you a blessed thing.

(5) Selma, 2015. Mostly not filmed in Selma. Georgia gives better tax credits, apparently, so the only scenes filmed here took place on the bridge. I was asked to be an extra in this but declined: they needed more Angry White Men in the background, and being a public librarian I didn’t exactly want to be filmed standing next to guys with nasty signs. The film made the choice of using some random courthouse in Georgia for their Dallas County courthouse, which is especially tragic because the courthouse is literally where ALL THE ACTION HAPPENED. All of the marches that took place in town in the months of early 1965 went to the courthouse; it was where Sheriff Jim Clark was hit by Annie Lee Cooper, etc. Even today, tourists never visit the courthouse where civil rights activists spent many cold, nervous hours — it’s always to walk across a bridge on which nothing happened. (“But the newspapers said –) Yeaah, the newspapers have been repeating that same a-historical nonsense since the late 1980s when they started doing bridge-crossing ‘commemorations’ and the bridge rather than the march to Montgomery to confront Governor Wallace became the fixed obsession. But, I digress and rant.

(6) Selma Lord Selma, 1999. Not one I’ve seen, so I can’t say anything aside from reviewing its Wikipedia article and saying that no, Jonathan Daniels certainly did NOT organize the Selma-Montgomery March: he came to Selma because he’d seen footage of the first march attempt and was responding to MLK’s request that clergy join the struggle.(Daniels is remembered as a saint in the Episcopal church for dying while protecting a young girl from a shotgun-wielding rando in Lowdnes County who alleged he saw Daniels pull a knife.)

(7) Big Fish. They built a town near Millbrook (a half hour or so from me) to use as the backdrop in this movie; the set is still standing. I keep meaning to go tour it.

(8) Fried Green Tomatoes. While I don’t live near the filming location of FGT (I have been there, it’s lovely), I do drive past the location that inspired it several times a month — the Irondale Cafe in Irondale.

(9) Just Mercy. Evidently parts of this were filmed in Montgomery, which is an hour or so away depending on how many state troopers there are on Highway 80.

(10) Talladega Nights did have some scenes filmed in Talladega. I have never been there; this film is the closest I have gotten to understanding why watching cars go in circles is entertaining. (Technically I’ve driven through Talladega on my way to Mount Cheaha, but did not stay in town.)