Downtown Phoenix in Film and Television
Mel's Diner, on the outskirts of downtown has been an old Phoenix landmark for decades. It's famous for being the setting for the TV sitcom Alice.
Many movies have been filmed in Phoenix using downtown locations.
- The 1960 film, Psycho features the Downtown Phoenix skyline in the opening shot. Originally Alfred Hitchcock wanted a helicopter shot to fly through downtown into the window of a hotel, but the shot was changed to a series of pan and fade shots.
- In the 1998 remake of Psycho Gus Van Sant filmed the opening shot using a helicopter and zooming into the 8th floor of the Westward Ho.
- The mall scene in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was filmed in Metrocenter Mall.
- Parade scenes for the 1956 Marilyn Monroe film, Bus Stop, were filmed in front of the Westward Ho.
- In the film Waiting to Exhale, Lela Rochon is shown in front of the Phoenix City Hall building in her character’s introduction scene.
- In the film The Gauntlet, the open shots feature the Phoenix skyline. Downtown is also used in the final climatic shoot-out between Clint Eastwood's character and the Phoenix Police, ending in front of the Phoenix Symphony Hall.
- In the film Ninja III: The Domination, a car chase uses the streets of downtown.
- Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie was filmed at The Dodge Theater in 2003.
- In the 1978 made for TV movie A Fire in the Sky, a comet crashes into Earth west of the city which destroys downtown Phoenix. Many landmarks are shown during the destruction. Wells Fargo Plaza and the Hyatt Regency Phoenix are shown collapsing while the glass skin of the Chase Tower, is blown from its steel skeleton. The antenna of the Westward Ho falls to the ground as a result of the impact blast. This film should not be confused for the 1993 alien abduction movie of the same name.
- In The Banger Sisters, the skyline is featured.
- In the film The Getaway, Phoenix stands in for Albuquerque with Kim Basinger navigating through downtown’s streets and alleys.
- The Arizona Center is used in the opening scenes of the 1998 film, Phoenix.
- The Paul Newman film, Pocket Money, used the Westward Ho courtyard for scenes in 1972.
- Olympic gold medalist Mitch Gaylord was filmed in the final competition scenes for 1986’s American Anthem at the now-razed Phoenix Union High School gym.
- In October 2008, Luke Wilson shot scenes throughout downtown for Middlemen.
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Famous quotes containing the words phoenix and/or film:
“A phoenix it is
This hearse that must bless
With aromatic gums
That cost great sums,
The way of thurification
To make a fumigation,
Sweet of reflare,
And redolent of air,”
—John Skelton (1460?–1529)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)