San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Take a stroll through S.A. movie history.
Picturesque locations have been featured in films
During a visit to Los Angeles last summer, my husband hatched a plan to watch Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” at the Cinerama Dome.
He’d heard that the iconic Hollywood theater was featured in the Brad Pitt-Leo DiCaprio film and thought it would be a kick to watch it for the first time at that Sunset Boulevard venue.
It was well worth the trouble. When the distinctive dome, along with other L.A. staples I’d visited over the years — the Playboy Mansion and El Coyote Mexican cafe — appeared onscreen, I was thrilled by the personal connection I felt to the movie and its stars.
Though San Antonio is far from the movie hub that Los Angeles is, the city has seen a fair share of filmmaking through the decades.
Spotting familiar places, buildings and landscapes in movies such as “Selena,” “Miss Congeniality,” “The Getaway” and “Cloak & Dagger” can make the viewing experience more special.
Why stop there? If you enjoy these movies, hop in your car or get on your feet and explore the settings where they were made. You might even re-enact a favorite scene.
Spend time with someone special on the River Walk bridge between North St. Mary’s and Navarro streets where the newly married Selena ( Jennifer Lopez) and Chris Perez ( Jon Seda) enjoyed an intimate moment in “Selena.”
Or follow in Pee-Wee Herman’s footsteps and walk giddily up the sidewalk toward the Alamo just like he did in hopes of finding his missing bicycle in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.”
To help you on your way, here’s a guide to made-in-S.A. movies — all of which are available to rent or buy on digital streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Vudu — as well as the locations they used and how to find them.
Some can be seen from your car; others will require you to park and walk.
Where to start? Where else?
The Alamo, the heart of downtown, seems like a good place to start because it’s easy to get to and has shone as a backdrop in a variety of films.
Once you park in one of the lots surrounding it along Travis or Houston streets, head to Alamo Plaza on foot. That’s where Sandra Bullock, dressed in a frilly German costume, played the theme from “Doctor Zhivago” on wine glasses in the “Miss Congeniality” talent competition.
The 2000 romp, which was set and filmed in San Antonio, also starred William Shatner, Candice Bergen and Michael Caine.
Bullock was Gracie, an FBI agent who goes undercover as a Miss United States beauty contestant. That tinkling tune is interrupted by a suspicious-looking onlooker packing a gun.
Coincidentally, Sean Connery, as a TV news reporter, tried to prevent an assassin from taking out a politician speaking in Alamo Plaza in the 1982 satirical thriller “Wrong Is Right.”
Another indelible Alamo image is in “Still Breathing,” starring Brendan Fraser and Joanna Going, a 1997 love letter not only to romance but to San Antonio, the hometown of director James F. Robinson. In one moonlit scene, a lone figure (Lou Rawls) plays a haunting tune on the saxophone in front of the Alamo.
“Selena,” Gregory Nava’s 1997 biopic of the Tejano music queen, also contains dramatic shots of the Alamo during a montage of her concerts.
The performance that takes your breath away, though, was filmed a short drive away at the Alamodome, 100 Montana St., which stood in for Houston’s
Astrodome. That was the site of Selena’s record-breaking rodeo concert in 1995, just about a month before she died.
Clad in a replica of Selena’s purple, midriff-baring jumpsuit, Lopez effectively re-creates that thrilling night, thanks in no small part to 34,000 screaming fans who donated their time as extras.
The massive, eye-catching stadium can be viewed from your car on U.S. 281, or if you’d like a closer look, take the Cesar Chavez Boulevard exit to Cherry Street and park.
About two blocks north of the Alamo, you’ll find the beautiful and imposing Scottish Rite Cathedral,
308 Ave. E, where a heartfelt scene in “All the Pretty Horses” (2000) was filmed.
In this period Western romance, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, a young Texas rancher (Matt Damon) starts a new life on a rich spread in Mexico. When he meets the owner’s daughter (Penelope Cruz), he’s instantly smitten — despite the fact that she’s off limits.
After much pain and torment, the two eventually meet for an intimate dinner. The elegant restaurant, filled with candlelight and fresh flowers, is actually a part of the cathedral that was transformed for the film shoot.
Next, the River Walk
Another location filmmakers have flocked to is San Antonio’s picturesque River Walk.
“Cloak and Dagger,” the 1984 spy adventure chiller with an 11-year-old kid (Henry Thomas) as its protagonist, serves up a host of S.A. locations, including the Tower Life Building, 310 St.
Mary’s St.; the Japanese Tea Garden in Brackenridge Park, 3853 N. St. Mary’s St.; and the San Antonio International Airport, 9800 Airport Blvd.
Thomas plays Davey, who is determined to stop bad guys from getting their hands on a video
game full of U.S. military secrets.
The movie’s creepiest moments take place on the River Walk, where Davey is threatened first on a barge by a man with a knife, then on a lonely stretch of the river by a gunman.
A prime way to see the River Walk is from the water, just as Steve McQueen and Ben Johnson did in Sam Peckinpah’s 1972 bank heist thriller “The Getaway.” Ex-con “Doc” McCoy (McQueen) meets with crooked businessman ( Johnson) on a river barge in one scene.
Go Rio river cruises is located at 809 River Walk St, though the business is now closed because of the pandemic.
One of “The Getaway’s” most exciting chases happens just minutes away from the River
Walk at Sunset Station, 1174 E Commerce St., back when it was a train depot. After Doc’s bank job goes horrifically awry, he heads there with his wife (Ali MacGraw) to make their getaway and temporarily stash their bag of loot in a locker.
It’s still possible to visit the location, complete with vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows and elegant staircase. The restored Sunset Station is now used as an event space.
While you’re downtown
Downtown San Antonio has range.
In Richard Linklater’s 1998 true-crime romp “The Newton Boys,” starring Matthew McConaughey, Ethan Hawke and Skeet Ulrich, Houston, Navarro and Travis streets stand in for Toronto in the 1920s.
After the Newton brothers, a family of robbers from Uvalde, stick up a bank, they make their escape in a car parked outside the luxurious old St. Anthony Hotel, 300 E. Travis St.
Drive north for less than a mile and you’ll spot the distinctive building used in Robert Rodriguez’s “Spy Kids” sequel. The strikingly modern, enchilada red Central Library, 600 Soledad St., houses the junior headquarters of the Organization of Super
Spies in “Spy Kids 2: Island of
Lost Dreams.”
In the 2002 comedy adventure, Carmen Cortez (Alexa PenaVega) and her little brother Juni (Daryl Sabara) report for duty at the building and eventually take on exciting missions of their own.
Then head north — and south
Our movie tour may thin out a bit when you depart downtown, but it’s not over yet.
R i v e r W a l ver Ri o i o nt A
H e
Tower of the Americas
St. Anthony Hotel 300 E. Travis St. (“The Newton Boys,” 1998)
Scottish Rite Cathedral 308 Ave. E (“All the Pretty Horses,” 2000)
Sunset Station 1174 E. Commerce St. (“The Getaway,” 1972)
Drive a couple miles north to Brackenridge Park and see firsthand where a young Jackie Chan fought off opponents in his English-speaking movie debut. “The Big Brawl” (1980), also known as “Battle Creek Brawl,” is primarily set in 1930s Chicago. But it’s on the stage of the Sunken Garden Theater, 3875 N. St. Mary’s St., that we witness some of Chan’s best martial arts moves.
No events are scheduled at the theater until the fall, but you can get a glimpse of it if you take a leisurely walk along the edge of
Alamodome
Sunken Garden Theater* 3875 N. St. Mary's St. (“The Big Brawl,” 1980)
Harry B. Orem Stadium 6900 Broadway St., (“Johnny Be Good,” 1988)
Pan-American Speedway (now closed)** Toepperwein Road west of I-35 (“Race With the Devil,” 1975) the park from the San Antonio Zoo past the Japanese Tea Garden.
If you take Broadway Street north to Castano Avenue, you’ll spot the main location used for football farce “Johnny Be Good.” The 1988 Anthony Michael Hall vehicle, which also starred thenunknowns Robert Downey Jr. and Uma Thurman, was largely filmed at Alamo Heights High School, 6900 Broadway. Behind the building is Harry B. Orem Stadium, where wacky gridiron star Johnny (Hall) shows off impressive football skills.
About a 20-minute drive south — from Broadway to East Hildebrand Ave. onto U.S. 281 and Interstate 35 — will take you to the place where a memorable scene in “Sugarland Express” was filmed.
The stretch of Military Drive that’s now home to South Park Plaza, 2303 S.W. Military Dr., is the site of a shootout in the 1974 crime caper that marked Steven Spielberg’s directorial debut.
It stars Goldie Hawn and William Atherton as a young mom and her escaped convict husband who travel across Texas to get their 2-year-old son, who’s been put into foster care. They kidnap a policeman and soon are pursued by a caravan of lawmen.
At one point, they park in a used car lot that overlooks a drive-in theater and stay there overnight. They get some needed levity when a Roadrunner cartoon pops up on the nearby movie screen. The next day, though, they are tracked down by gun-wielding vigilantes and are lucky to get out alive.
The theater, according to Texas Public Radio film expert Nathan Cone, was the South Loop 13 Drive-in Theater. It closed in 1979.
Another lost movie location is on the opposite side of town, where scenes from the horror film “Race With the Devil,” starring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates, were shot.
Most of the movie’s big scares involving satanic rituals happen on the roads and in the wilds of the Hill Country, towns such as Bandera, Leakey and Tarpley.
However, Fonda shows off his extensive motorcycle skills in a race filmed at the old Pan-American Speedway on the Northeast Side.
You’d have to be a bird, or use Google Maps, to spot the remains of the quarter-mile oval track off Toepperwein Road. It’s just on the other side of the big new-car storage lot to your right if you’re driving west from I-35.
Road trips!
If you’re up for a quick road trip to New Braunfels or Helotes, you can visit the iconic dance halls where John Travolta cut a mean rug in “Michael” and Luke Perry hung out with his fellow cowboys in “8 Seconds.”
In the latter, Perry plays rodeo legend Lane Frost. The 1994 film from Oscar winner John G. Avildsen was shot primarily outside San Antonio — in Boerne, mostly — and focuses not only on Frost’s career as a bull-riding champion but on his personal life.
Some of these off-duty moments show him kicking back at a bar, which in real-life was John T. Floore’s Country Store, 14492 Old Bandera Road in Helotes.
Gruene Hall, 1281 Gruene Road in New Braunfels, provided some authentic atmosphere for Nora Ephron’s 1996 fantasy “Michael.
It’s where John Travolta, as an archangel sent to Earth, engages in some truly wicked footwork — a bizarre twist on the line dance to Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” on the wooden floors of Texas’ oldest dance hall.