USS Valley Forge (CV-45) - Silent Running Film Location

Silent Running Film Location

While at Long Beach, from 14–28 February 1971, the interior of the aircraft carrier was used as a shooting location for filming the 1971 science fiction film Silent Running. The central location of the film is a 2,000- ft (610 m)- long space-bound cargo freighter, carrying six large geodesic domes, under which the last forests of an environmentally-devastated Earth are kept.

The producers of the film were searching for pre-existing locations which could represent the cargo deck, control rooms, and living quarters of a fictional "space freighter." Building sets on Hollywood sound stages would have been prohibitively expensive, so in order to minimize the impact on the film's minimal budget, various large interior locations were investigated, including warehouses, cargo ships, and oil tankers. After contacting the United States Navy with a query about the use of aircraft carriers, the producers were directed to several decommissioned Essex-class carriers awaiting scrapping at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, including the USS Valley Forge, and fellow carriers USS Philippine Sea and USS Princeton. The type of location proved to be perfect for the film, the Valley Forge was selected, and a deal was struck with the Navy. In honor of the filming location, the space freighter of the film was christened Valley Forge.

The carrier's hangar deck was featured in the film as a cargo hold, which was repainted and filled with polystyrene modules representing futuristic cargo containers. Her flight command area was heavily modified to represent the control room and living quarters of the fictional space ship crew. Bulkheads were cut out and replaced with wider passageways to allow for camera and actor movement. Set pieces, computer consoles, and various props were moved in to dress the ship as the space freighter. The production crew was allowed to do anything they wanted with the ship, as long as no metal was removed. All power and water had to be imported, as the crew was not allowed to use ship power. Filming was hampered by the tight confines of the carrier, necessitating several innovations in the filming process.

Eight months after filming wrapped, Valley Forge was sold for scrap in October 1971.