_Celebrating the iconic backdrops to some of the world’s best loved films
Perhaps it’s time for the Oscars, the Baftas and the Golden Globes to introduce a new category: Best Movie Location.
The appearance of a stunning landscape or an exotic city in a film has the power to send audiences flocking to visit the actual spot where the cameras rolled. Newspaper travel sections often have to answer questions such as: “Where is the hotel in The Shining?” (Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon), “What’s the name of the beach where Ursula Andress emerges from the sea in Dr No?” (Laughing Waters, Jamaica) or “Where is the shark-attack beach in Jaws?” (Martha’s Vineyard island).
And it isn’t just film – this is a Golden Age for TV locations. Downton Abbey has put its alter ego, Highclere Castle in Hampshire, firmly on the tourist trail, and nobody has accurately estimated how much Game of Thrones fans have added to Iceland or Northern Ireland’s coffers, but it is enough for a sizeable deposit in the Iron Bank.
Here then, are the nominations for Best Movie Locations, some classic, others recent and a few yet to come.
Above: The Griffith Observatory in LA
LA LA Land
Los Angeles
This 2016 love letter to Los Angeles bristles with recognisable restaurants, clubs and freeways. One of the film’s pivotal moments, Mia and Sebastian’s heart-warming song-and-dance routine, was filmed at Cathy’s Corner, on the road that cuts through Griffith Park (laparks.org/griffithpark). It overlooks the twinkling San Fernando Valley, which is a grand view, but be aware that the benches and streetlights were set dressing, not real.
The park is also home to another La La Land locale, the domed Griffith Observatory, which has featured in movies since 1935, including Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Terminator (1984).
Above: Greek filming location for Mamma Mia
Mamma Mia
Greece
The first slice of this guilty pleasure came out in 2008. It was mostly shot on the Greek island of Skopelos. The church wedding is at Agios Ioannis in Castri (song: Winner Takes It All) and the beach is Kastani – the spot where the songs Does Your Mother Know, Lay All Your Love On Me and I Have A Dream are given an airing.
Some scenes were filmed on Skiathos (the harbour at Bourtzi) and at Pelion (at Damouhari Mouresion) on the mainland, where Dancing Queen Meryl Streep divebombs into the water.
This year’s sequel, Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again is again set in Greece, but this time shooting took place on the Croatian island of Vis, home to Stiniva, one of the best beaches on the Med.
Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit
New Zealand
It might be in the news as the endof- the-world bolthole for paranoid Silicon Valley billionaires, but it was Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy Lord of The Rings ( 2001-2003 ) that first brought the stunning variety of New Zealand’s landscapes to many people’s attention. The Shire, home to the
Hobbits, is actually Matamata on North Island, about two hours’ drive from Auckland, and you can actually tour the 44 houses that were built for the films (hobbitontours.com).
More dramatically, there is also the beautifully rugged Tongariro National Park – home to three active volcanoes, one of which, Ngauruhoe, doubled as Mount Doom.
On the South Island, the best base is Queenstown, which gives access to the locations of the Elven forest of Lothlórien and Treebeard’s Fangorn and is the gateway to the snow-capped Misty Mountains. You can explore on foot, by bike, on horse or by air.
Lawrence of Arabia
Jordan
Still a byword for epic desert landscapes, David Lean’s 1962 film starring Peter O’Toole was partly shot around Wadi Rum in Jordan, which was the cinematic home to the camps of Auda (Anthony Quinn) and Feisal (Alec Guinness).
Production designer John Box, described it as: “Towering red cliffs rising two or three thousand feet from the pink, sandy floor, it was grand and romantic.” It still is, especially at sunrise and sunset when the sun flares off those pinks and reds; you can camp under star-filled night skies so you can witness both.
Wadi Rum also appears in Star Wars: Rogue One. The country also features in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), where the rock-carved “Rose City” of Petra (one of Lawrence’s favourite places) plays a pivotal role.
Star Wars
Bolivia
Without doubt the most famous of Star Wars locations is Matmata in Tunisia, which stands in for arid Tatooine and features the sunken troglodyte dwellings, but 2017’s The Last Jedi had somewhere even more bleak but beautiful. For the final showdown, the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia were transformed into the sodium-chloride-encrusted Planet Crait.
This part of the country’s Altiplano plateau is lung-burningly high (12,000 feet above sea level), mind-blowingly vast and eye-searingly white, although the emptiness is ameliorated by the annual visit of three flamingo species every November. It is best explored by fourwheel drive from the town of Uyuni.
Mission Impossible
Norway
Another film series that is no stranger to breathtaking sets – remember Tom Cruise on top of Utah’s Dead Horse Point in Mission: Impossible 2? For Mission: Impossible 6 (due out in July), he is climbing again, this time in the fjords of Norway. Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock) is an extraordinary mountain plateau/viewing platform at Lysefjord.
It is a vertiginous no-barriers 604m above the icy waters of the fjord – imagine a giant diving board made of rock protruding from the cliff face. Cruise and crew came in by helicopter, mere mortals have a four-hour return hike from Preikestolen Vandrerhjem, east of Stavanger. Bring a head for heights.
Above: Chinese location for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
China
When Ang Lee made this groundbreaking, visually stunning martial arts film in 2000, he used many of the sets at Hengdian World Studios, in Hengdiang, a town in the mountainous eastern province of Zhejiang. This is the equivalent of Universal Studios, with theme park rides and hotels as well as actual shooting lots for TV and film (hengdianworld.com).
One of the most memorable scenes, though, is the gravity-defying treetop fight and this was shot in the Anhui Bamboo Forest at Mukeng, a couple of miles east of Hongcunzhen. The latter is the medieval village, full of ponds and waterways, which featured in the movie.
It is actually a Unesco World Heritage Site, not far from the strange, jutting granite peaks and hot springs of Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), a major destination for hikers in China. Further information on these (relatively) remote areas can be found on the China National Tourist Office (cnto.org).
Above: Hawaiian location for Jurassic Park - Na Pali coast
Jurassic Park
Hawaii
You just can’t keep a good raptor down: this series returns – as does Jeff Goldblum – in June this year with the fifth entry, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom. Like the previous films, it was mostly shot in the lush jungles of Kaui, the loveliest (and smallest) of the major Hawaiian islands (also used in King Kong, the Indiana Jones movies and the TV series Lost).
Locations include the green slopes and sheer cliffs of the Na Pali Coast and the spectacular Manawaiopuna Falls in the Hanapepe Valley. You can tour sites by helicopter or by four-wheel drive.
Above: The fortified town (ksar) of Ait Benhaddou
Gladiator
Morocco
A former Foreign Legion post called Ouarzazate, on the southern side of the Atlas range from Marrakesh, has become the Hollywood of North Africa. The attraction is its proximity to exotic locations such as the fortified town (ksar) of Aït Benhaddou. The list of films shot at this clay-coloured Unesco World Heritage Site village is impressive, including Jesus of Nazareth (1977), The Living Daylights (1987), The Mummy (1999) and Prince of Persia (2010).
That’s right, if you want biblical gravitas, merciless burning sands or Arabian Nights splendour, this is the place for you. And yes, Game of Thrones has been here. Gladiator (2000) really made the most of the location, utilising the town and surrounding area as the backdrop for the slavery, desert travel, and gladiatorial training-school scenes.
More impressively, its designers called upon the kind of local construction techniques that built the ksar in the first place to create a 30,000- seat arena built entirely of mud bricks.
Who needs CGI, anyway?
The Man With The Golden Gun
Thailand
The seductive allure of the ‘exotic location’ has always been a key ingredient in the recipe for any James Bondfilm and some spots such as Piz Gloria, the revolving restaurant on the Schilthorn in Mürren, Switzerland (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), the Lake Palace at Udaipur, India (Octopussy) and Iguaçu Falls on the Brazilian Argentine border (Moonraker) have become star attractions.
But arguably the one that tops them all in terms of visitor numbers is ‘James Bond Island’ near Phuket in Thailand, as seen in Roger Moore’s The Man With The Golden Gun (1974).
Scaramanga’s hideout is in reality Khow Ping Kan, one of a chain of small, jungle-covered limestone pillars that rise spectacularly from the turquoise waters of Phang Nga Bay, Phuket. It can be very busy with boat-going sightseers in peak tourist season, although you could take a more sedate canoe trip, which offers the chance of more serene explorations.