How movie set became focus for Suspicious Minds
THE location used to recreate Memphis for the movie production of Elvis is an old Gold Coast dump, renowned for its stink and being part of a murder mystery.
Mayor Tom Tate visited location filming at the Village Roadshow studios at Oxenford and at the old Suntown tip at the neighbouring central Coast suburb of Arundel.
“We went back to the dump, Suntown. We will rename it the Suntown Studio. Literally, it’s a dump and now it’s a street of Memphis,” Cr Tate told councillors.
In the late 1990s the tip, apart from causing a stench for students attending the neighbouring Arundel State School, was a subject of mystery and gossip.
Staff and children became aware that detectives were scouring through the rubbish to try and locate parts of the body of a former Japanese criminal. Akiko Kitayama, 52, was later convicted and sentenced in Brisbane’s Supreme Court after being found guilty of cutting up her husband with a chainsaw in 1999. The body of Hamago Kitayama has never been found. He had been a crime lord surviving 30 years in one of Japan’s most violent Yakuza clans before arriving on the Coast to retire.
Almost a decade later the tip was again in the news as many residents blamed their health issues on the dump.
Council agreed to install inhouse monitors after residents complained about potential explosions due to methane gas leaking from the site.
The landfill, which opened in 1979, was closed in 2012, and recently was subjected to high security as residents watched old vehicles being driven down Captain Cook Drive.
Area councillor Ryan Baydon-Lumsden said filming should be winding up at the tip this week.
“I think it has been great for the city. A lot of residents have had their restored vehicles used in the production,” he said.
“I believe nothing can happen with the tip’s future until all the methane has been leeched from the site. It would be nice if it had some broader community service like sporting fields or green space (in the next few decades).”
Moviegoers will have to wait longer than expected to see the film – which was subject to a six-month delay after star Tom Hanks tested positive to COVID-19 – with reports last week its release has been pushed back from November to June next year.