Saturday, February 17, 2018

"The Doors"

A concert venue in San Francisco that's seen about forty minutes into Oliver Stone's "The Doors" (TriStar Pictures, 1991). It's the story of Jim Morrison and his band. It's unknown what hall was used but on the DVD commentary track Oliver notes that they did indeed shoot it in San Francaisco and it was intended to be an homage to The Fillmore.


An hour into the film we're in the 5th floor loft at the Palace Theatre, 615 S. Broadway, with Jim (Val Kilmer) and Patricia (Kathleen Quinlan). It's standing in for an apartment in New York. There's lots of rain washing down those slanted windows. We later return here for a wedding scene. The film also stars stars Meg Ryan and Kyle MacLachlan. The cinematography was by Robert Richardson.

See the pages about the Palace Theatre on the Los Angeles Theatres site for a history of the theatre. It opened as the Orpheum in 1911.



A concert scene in New Haven uses the Orpheum Theatre, 842 S. Broadway.  



A main floor view at the Orpheum. 



On the bare Orpheum stage before the concert. The promoter, played by Bill Graham, is telling the audience the show won't happen unless they clear the aisles and sit down.

See the Los Angeles Theatres pages about the Orpheum Theatre for a history of this 1926 vintage vaudeville house along with several hundred photos. It's a design by G. Albert Lansburgh.

The film also has a concert sequence set in Miami that was shot at the Olympic Auditorium at 18th and Main. Pay a visit to Chas Demster's post about the film's shooting locations on the blog Filming Locations of Chicago and Los Angeles for shots of other locations.

On IMDb: "The Doors"

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