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Sunday, March 23, 2003

By Todd Pitock

In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Academy Awards tonight, we pay homage to a selection of award-winning locations that became synonymous with movies that were shot there.

Film and travel share a common theme of escape. Film inspires dreams; travel fulfills them. Here are our nominees for, if you will, the Oscars for Best Locations.

"Amadeus" (1984), Prague, the Czech Republic

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart spent lots of time in Prague, which stands in for Vienna in the film. To appreciate the city, walk across the Charles Bridge late at night when the castle that looms over the city is alight and fewer people are about. Or go early, cross into the Mala Strana (the Lesser Town) and follow the trail up to the castle itself for a view of Prague's red roofs, golden steeples and the Vltava river. The movie's opera scenes were filmed in the Tyl Theater, a 1783 building that is the Czech Republic's national theater. Pubs are a big part of Prague life. Try Mediviku, owned by Budvar Brewery, which claims to be the original Budweiser. It's accessible without being over-the-top touristy, and the Czech pub fare features dumplings with smoked pork and sauerkraut and goulash made with Budvar and served with dumplings shaped like goose eggs.

"The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1974), Montreal, Canada

Richard Dreyfuss got his start in this savvy flick set in Montreal and based on a novel by the late Mordecai Richler. A bit of old France in the New World, the city that's one of North America's most photogenic has wonderful restaurants, almost continuous and very high-spirited festivals throughout the year and unparalleled street theater. The au courant place to plug in is Ex-Centris (1-514-847-3536; www.ex-centris.com), a stone- and steel-walled cinema/cafe complex. Independent films are screened in their native tongue with French and English subtitles.

Seats are individually cooled, so you're not blasted by freezing air conditioning. And a second cinema doubles as a room for events and exhibits. The seats sink to make way for a hardwood floor. Before your flick, sip a martini at the complex's chic Cafe Melies.

"The Age of Innocence" (1993), Philadelphia

America's oldest continuously running opera house, Philadelphia's baroque Academy of Music, masqueraded as New York's Academy of Music for this period film. It presides over the Avenue of the Arts, on which you'll find the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, an immense venue that opened in December, and City Hall, with its towering statue of William Penn. Nearby is the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 and the nation's first free library; the elegant Rodin Museum, which boasts the only collection devoted entirely to the master sculptor's work outside Paris; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with the steps that were filmed in "Rocky." Just up Walnut Street, Restaurant Row offers a concentration of some of the nation's finest restaurants, among them Le Bec-Fin (1-215-567-1000), whose galette de crab is the signature dish on a flawless menu, and Pasion! (1-215-875-9895), a Nueva Latino place noted for its ceviche.

"Black Orpheus" (1959), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The passion captured in Marcel Camus' film, set in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval, is still here. Rio itself, a hauntingly beautiful city built along beaches and mountains, has modernized and become more tourist-friendly in recent years, with English street signs and spruced-up beaches. The film's stars would have experienced the opulence of the Copacabana Palace, which just completed a $40 million renovation to restore it to the heady 1920s, when its marble interiors and luxe suites attracted a glamorous clientele. The palace is in Copacabana, which, along with Ipanema, is one of the top beachfront neighborhoods, with easy access to downtown and, of course, Rio's famously sultry beaches (www.orient-expresshotels.com).

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), Devils Tower, Wyo.

Devils Tower, the Wyoming scene of the eponymous close encounter, is an 867-foot striated "plug," the core of an eroded volcano.

Established by Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, it was the country's first national monument and it's also a sacred spot for the Kiowa and other northern Plains Indians, who know it as "Bear Lodge." Some Indian legends say Devils Tower was a refuge for seven little girls who were chased by bears. As the bears reached out to grab them, the story goes, the tower carried them up into the stars.

"Gods and Generals" (2003), Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

Director Ronald F. Maxwell's superb epic of the first two years of the Civil War was filmed on location in Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia. Many of the key scenes, including the urban Battle of Fredericksburg, was actually shot in Harpers Ferry Historic National Park in West Virginia. Located at the gloriously scenic confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the 2,300-acre park includes the armory where John Brown first attempted to seize arms to lead a slave rebellion and where Stonewall Jackson, the focus of the film, had one of his greatest victories against Federal forces (www.nps.gov/hafe). For Civil War travelers, it's also a great starting point from which to go north to scenes of other battles at Antietem, Md., and on into Pennsylvania to Gettysburg.

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001), Great Britain

The movie about the boy wizard was shot throughout Britain, from London's financial district (Gringotts bank is really Australia House, home of the Australian High Commission) to Oxford University (the Bodleian Library was used for some interiors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) to Alnwick Castle (a k a the exterior of Hogwarts) near the Scottish border. A four- to five-hour drive from London is the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, which runs historic steam engines from Pickering through Goathland, the movie's Hogsmeade Station. The 18-mile route, which operates from March through October, also crosses the heather-clad expanse of North York Moors National Park.

"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989), Petra, Jordan

The temple that houses the grail in the film's final sequence is Al Khazneh (The Treasury), a funerary hall in Petra, a 2,000-year-old city in the Jordanian desert where an ancient civilization carved buildings into the sandstone hills. The interior is really just a few chambers and niches, not the temple complex you see in the movie. But the 102-square-mile Petra National Park is captivating: a desert wadi speckled with ancient monuments, baths, theaters and other structures with architectural motifs that attest to the cross-pollination of cultures and influences that once thrived here. Egyptian obelisks, Greek pediments and colonnades and reliefs and decorated niches reflect the presence of Assyrians, Edomites and, of course, the Nabateans, the industrious Arab traders who created Petra.

"A River Runs Through It" (1992), Montana

The serene fly-fishing scenes along the Gallatin and Yellowstone rivers in Upper Paradise Valley inspired travel to Montana. Our pick for a great outdoor retreat, Adventure Whitewater (1-800-897-3061; www.adventurewhitewater.com), runs guided rafting trips along waterways cutting through the pristine Bear Tooth Mountains (think alpine slopes, deer and occasionally bears) on the riverbanks and trout sometimes leaping out of the water to catch bugs. Most trips run three hours and accommodate eight rafters, but you can organize the level of adventure you want, from mild to wild.

"The Road to Wellville" (1994), Upstate New York

About an early wellness spa and its eccentric founder, this film was shot at the Mohonk Mountain House (1-845-255-1000), a 251-room Victorian-era resort that looks like a castle, with turrets and towers, alongside Lake Mohonk, which is ringed by cliffs within a 26,000-acre Shawangunk Mountains nature preserve just 90 minutes from Manhattan. Most rooms have balconies overlooking the lake or mountains, and about half have working fireplaces. Almost every weekend has a theme, from swing and tango to chocolate and Provence (www.mohonk.com).

"The Alamo" (1960), San Antonio

This John Wayne classic was shot 120 miles from San Antonio, near Del Rio, where the production crew built a facsimile of the famous mission. On the site of the original Alamo, a San Antonio landmark and Texas' second-most-visited attraction, a walled compound includes a shrine to those who died defending the Alamo and a museum that houses historic artifacts of the battle. Texas' other top attraction is the River Walk, which runs for 21/2 miles along the San Antonio River. Visit The Landing (1-210-223-7266), a jazz club and Southwestern restaurant where the radio show "Riverwalk, Live from the Landing" is recorded. For authentic Tex Mex, a San Antonio staple, try Rosario's (1-210-223-1806), four blocks south off the River Walk (www.sanantoniovisit.com).

"The Last Emperor" (1987), Beijing

The Bernardo Bertolucci film was the first in which a Western crew received government permission to film inside China's Forbidden City, the imperial seat of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Twenty-four emperors ruled from 1421 until 1912. The immense walled compound of what legend says are 9,999 rooms took 200,000 workers 14 years to build. Gates and great doors open onto courtyards that lead to ceremonial halls whose names suggest serenity and divinity, consistent with an ancient belief that the Imperial City and its emperor were the center of the world.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001), The Remarkables, New Zealand

J.R.R. Tolkien's mythical Dimrill Dale hillside was re-created at Lake Alta in The Remarkables, a mountain range that is national parkland popular for skiing, ice and mountain climbing and heli-hiking. Nearby Queenstown lays claim to having commercially launched bungee jumping and jet boating and is pioneering new forms of do-you-dare adventures such as canyoning (rappelling and absailing down water- and rock falls) and river-surfing.

"Cyrano de Bergerac" (1990), Burgundy, France

Some of this film was shot in Dijon, the capital of Burgundy. The region is the stuff of dream vacations: forest-clad hills surrounding ducal castles and stone villages and chateaux surrounded by an ocean of vineyards that spill down into a valley that's bisected by a single country road. Dijon's charming old city has Renaissance mansions and churches, but Beaune, about 20 minutes south, is the wine capital, a marvelous French provincial town that's a base to explore the great wine lands of nearby Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet and Aloxe-Corton.

"The Mission" (1986), Iguazu Falls, Argentina

The scenes of Robert De Niro penitentially hauling a heavy load up rocky, waterfall-lined cliffs was filmed at Iguazu Falls, on the Argentina-Brazil-Paraguay border about two hours by plane northeast of Buenos Aires. Iguazu is the world's widest falls, broader and higher than Niagara. Over a four-mile-wide area, three groups of enormous cascades separated by brush and islands crash through 275 cataracts into the roiling horseshoe-shaped waters below. You can get close to the action via motorized dinghies, which operate at the top overlooking the falls, or down below, in the roar of crashing water, and where you also see incredible rainbows. You should also explore the Iguazu National Park, a tropical forest populated with tapirs, pumas and capuchin monkeys and littered with the ruins of the Jesuit missions, such as you see in the film and which give the province, called Missiones, its name.

"Night of the Iguana" (1964), Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

John Huston's adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play and the much-publicized affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton sent tourists streaming to the previously sleepy hamlet of Puerto Vallarta. What they come for now is the Mexican art. Immense sculptures line the downtown Malecon, and the city is filled studios and galleries. The owner of Galleria Pacifica, Gary Thompson (011-52-322-222-1982; www.artmexico.com), runs tours to artists' studios, such as that of 70-year-old Amiz Barquet. whose sculpture studio is atop a house with views of Banderas Bay.

"North by Northwest" (1959), Mount Rushmore, S.D.

This Alfred Hitchcock classic ends with a shot of South Dakota's Mount Rushmore (although the climactic scene was actually filmed on an MGM soundstage). The heads of presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, sculpted between 1934 and 1941, are impressive, but equally so is the Crazy Horse Monument 17 miles away. Begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and continued by his children, the work-in-progress will be the world's largest sculpture, 563 feet high and 641 feet long. Crazy Horse's face, completed in 1998, is 87 feet high. (Rushmore faces are each 60 feet.)

Todd Pitock is a freelance writer in Villanova, Pa.