Grand Theater in Huntsville

Recently my brother Richard and I were going through some papers at mom's house in Huntsville, and we found this piece torn from a newspaper many years ago. Mom saved an item on the other side, but this side gives the source and date and includes an advertisement for a movie showing at the Grand Theater. Neither Richard nor I remembered the Grand even though we both grew up in Huntsville. So naturally I decided to investigate.

I found some information on the Cinema Treasures site and a page devoted to Huntsville movie theaters. The Grand first opened in April 1920 on Jefferson Street, but that original movie house burned in December 1924. Its replacement opened the following year and featured a Robert Morton theater organ. The Theater closed on May 25, 1960.

As the ad below notes, the theater featured the final local showings that day of The Bridge On the River Kwai, a classic World War II film released on December 14, 1957, in the United States. I suspect the Grand was a second-run theater at the time of this ad, since the film is showing there six months after its U.S. release.

Can't beat those ticket prices, though! 

Alabama Photo of the Day: Homewood Theatre in 1941

The first photo below shows the Homewood Theatre after its renovation in 1941. Below that is an article from the Birmingham News in January of that year describing the changes coming to the venue. The second photo shows the theater around 1928, and the final one of the building was taken in March 2019. 

The 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages theater listings gives the address as 2834 South 18th Street. The architect for the redesign was Wilmot Douglas; you can see a list of some of his other buildings in the Birmingham area here. He also designed the College Theatre which opened in East Lake in 1949. 

The Cinema Treasures site says the theater closed around 1963. If you have other information or memories about the Homewood Theatre, feel free to leave them in the comments section. 

Taken in 1941 by a photographer named Rushing for the Birmingham News

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives & History

Birmingham News article January 1941 

Source: Birmingham Rewound

C. 1928 Birmingham News photo of the Homewood Theatre from the Birmingham Public Library's Birmingham News Photograph Collection (Item BN545)

Films advertised include "Arizona Wildcat" (1927), "Fireman, Save My Child" (1927), "While the City Sleeps" (1928), "Tarzan the Mighty" (1928), "The Scrappin' Ranger" (1928), and "Beauty and Bullets" (1928). The door on the left is marked "Colored Entrance".

Source: BhamWiki

This photo via Google Maps shows the building in March 2019. 

Film Actresses from Alabama Before 1960 (7): Boots Mallory

In its January 1933 issue New Movie Magazine declared she was "Delectable Boots Mallory, the new Fox find..." Let's investigate her Alabama connection and her career.

Several sources give New Orleans as Mallory's birthplace; her mother Myrtle was born in Louisiana. However, other sources give Mobile. The 1940 U.S. Census lists New York as her birthplace. I have been unable to locate her family in Mobile until the 1930 U.S. Census, when her father John H., mother and several brothers and sisters are all listed. Mallory herself had left for New York by then. A number of sources do give her birth date as October 22,1913, including her Social Security record that lists Louisiana as her birthplace.

Mallory is known to have attended Murphy High School, which began as Mobile High School until the name change in 1927. That 1940 census gives "Highest Grade Attained" as the 8th grade. Around age 12 she started playing banjo in an all girls band. She also appeared as a dancer at the Lyric Theatre, Mobile's early vaudeville house. At some point a travelling group from the Ziegfield Follies came through town and noticed her. She soon relocated to New York City. 

Mallory appeared in George White's Scandals of 1928, which ran on Broadway from July 1928 until January 1929. She followed with roles in the Ziegfield Follies of 1931, that ran from July until November of that year. She seems to have made enough of an impression in these musical revues to warrant a move to Hollywood.

In September 1931 famed director and actor Eric von Stroheim signed a contract for a film version of Dawn Powell's play Walking Down Broadway. The production would be von Stroheim's first sound film and feature his "discovery" Boots Mallory as one of the two female leads. The story featured strong sexual themes too explosive for the era, and von Stroheim's version was drastically cut and new scenes added. The film was finally released in April 1933 as Hello, Sister!. Von Stroheim's version is apparently lost; he never directed another film. 

The first of Mallory's films to be released was Handle with Care in December 1932. As with Hello, Sister!, James Dunn played the male lead in this comedy-drama that has Mallory taking care of two rambunctious children left by her dead sister and falling in love with Dunn's character, an assistant district attorney. Oh, and assassins kidnap the pair of lovebirds but the children save the day. In the film Mallory sings "Throw a Little Salt on the Bluebird's Tail."

As a result of her appealing performance in that film, Mallory was chosen as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1932, an annual promotion by theater owners. Yet this positive publicity was undermined by the negatives surrounding Hello, Sister!. For whatever reasons, Mallory's film career did not last very much longer. 

She made less than a dozen movies. In April 1933 Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 was released. In this musical comedy short, Mallory appears with numerous other stars under the guise of studio portraits coming to life. The cast includes Chico Marx, Mae West, Ginger Rogers, and Bebe Daniels. Also appearing is fellow Alabamian Johnny Mack Brown, the former University of Alabama football player making a name for himself in westerns.   

Mallory acted in three more films in 1933, Humanity, The Wolf Dog and Carnival Lady. Two more films followed in 1934, one in 1935 and two in 1938. One of those two was Swiss Miss, a Laurel and Hardy comedy in which she appeared uncredited. She never returned to the screen. She also made two appearances on the Lux Radio Theatre in September 1936 and February 1939.

Her Wikipedia entry notes, "A tall blonde, Mallory was well regarded for her striking looks and was photographed by such photographers as George Hurrell. She also posed for risque lingerie photographs, and was painted nude by the pin-up artist Rolf Armstrong."

Mallory married three times. Her first husband was Charles Bennett, a much older New Zealander who began his career in silent films in 1912. She married him at age 16. By 1933 she was free to marry William Cagney, actor James Cagney's lookalike brother, an actor and film producer. The couple adopted fraternal twins Jill and Stephan. They divorced in 1946; one rumor claims Mallory caught her husband in a very compromising position with actress Ann Sheridan. The following year Mallory married actor Herbert Marshall; they remained together until her death in 1958.  

The article reproduced below, "Along Came Bill!", has a long profile of Mallory and discusses her poetry and an operation she had. 

Her ashes are interred at Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. Many more images of Boots Mallory can be found on this Pinterest page. 

Mallory's birthplace remains to be determined. I leave you with two quotes about her from the Mobile Press-Register newspaper:

"Patricia (Boots) Mallory,, blonde film star and native of Mobile, was married Saturday to William Cagney after an airplane elopement to Tia Juana...Cagney is a brother of James Cagney and a recent arrival in the Hollywood film colony."
-Tuesday, September 26, 1933

"Patricia (Boots) Mallory, native Mobilian, former stage and screen beauty and wife of actor Herbert Marshall, died yesterday in St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., of a chronic throat ailment.
-December 2, 1958

That latter piece goes on to note her marriages to Cagney and Marshall. It also says she was working as an usherette at the Lyric Theatre in Mobile when the Ziegfield Follies performed there. 

Mallory in 1934

Source: Wikipedia 

New Movie Magazine January 1933

Source: Lantern

Variety December 1932

Source: Lantern 

William Cagney and Boots Mallory

Source: Ancestry.com 

Modern Screen 1933

Source: Lantern

Motion Picture Herald 1935

Source: Lantern 

New Movie Magazine January 1934

Source: Lantern 

Variety February 1933

Source: Lantern 

Source: Pinterest

Postcard views of the Lyric Theatre in Mobile before 1920.

Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History

Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History 

Film Actresses from Alabama before 1960 (6): Lottice Howell

Lottice Howell is a bit different from the other actresses I've covered so far in this series. Her film career was much less substantial, and she returned to Alabama to live for the last several decades of her life. Let's investigate.

Howell was born in Kentucky on October 14, 1897 [some sources say November 14]; various sources list the place as Bowling Green. Her parents were John Eli and Clara Howell. By the time the 1910 U.S. Census was taken, she and her family were living in Moundville. Howell's father reported his occupation as operator of a lumber mill. Lottice had an older brother Ottis and two younger brothers, Harry and Ely. She is listed in that census as "Lottis Howel." The family lived on Market Street in Moundville. 

After graduating from high school in Moundville around 1913, she entered Huntingdon College. That school, founded in Tuskegee in 1856, had just relocated to its current Montgomery campus in 1910. Howell graduated with a degree in music and remained at the school as an instructor until she had saved enough money to move to New York City in 1918 to study under voice instructor Sergei Klibanski.

We can assume a couple of things from this narrative of Howell's life so far. Her family must have been fairly well off if they could afford to send the one daughter out of four children to a private college. And Lottice's soprano voice must have been good enough for her to have the confidence to move to New York to study.

When her money ran out, Howell returned to Alabama and taught school long enough to save funds for a return. By 1920 she had joined the cast of Irving Berlin's "Music Box Revue", and soon appeared in shows alongside Fannie Brice and the Marx Brothers. She played a role in a production of Verdi's opera "Rigoletto", and then the lead in Mozart's "Impressario". She appeared with Charlie Chaplin in an RKO vaudeville show. In 1926 she was in the play "Deep River" at the Plymouth Theater on Broadway, and after that in the musical comedy "My Maryland" produced by Sigmund Romberg. In 1927 she acted and sang in the musical comedy "Bye, Bye Bonnie". 

After such success in New York, Hollywood began to notice. She accepted an offer from MGM and moved to the west coast in October 1929. An early film role is apparently an uncredited one as "Vocalist" in Estrellados with Buster Keaton. Perhaps she was able to mingle with some of the other stars of the day in the film, including Jackie Coogan, Robert Montgomery, Fred Niblo, Anita Page and Lionel Barrymore. The film was released in July 1930.

A few months previously Howell made the film with her biggest role, In Gay Madrid. Heartthrob Ramon Navarro was the male lead, but as the poster below indicates, Howell got equal billing with the other female star, Dorothy Jordan. Howell plays Goyita, the former love of Navarro's character. Released in May 1930, the musical comedy is set in Spain and based on a novel by Alejandro Perez Lugin.

That film is Howell's only major appearance in a full-length Hollywood production. She did appear in some shorts, such as 1930's The Flower Garden and the 1933 Nertsery Rhymes noted below. Another Buster Keaton film, the 1930 Free and Easy, featured Lottice in a musical number, "It Must Be You," with Robert Montgomery and Anita Page. You can hear her sing in a video on YouTube. 

MGM apparently considered her an up and coming star for some period; her dressing room on the studio lot was between those of Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford. Perhaps they did not know what to do with a woman who had both a wonderful soprano voice and smoldering beauty. 

Although MGM refused to loan her to other studios, they did allow her to continue her singing career when not required to be on set. She had a regular program on NBC Radio and toured widely, including an appearance at the London Palladium. The 1940 U.S. Census lists her as living in a house with two other women at 28 East 56th Street in New York City.

When World War II, started, Howell toured the South and gave half the proceeds to the Red Cross. Her father had died in the mid-1930's and by 1942 her mother was too elderly to run the family cattle farm in Hale County. Howell moved home, kept the farm and continued her musical activities locally until her death on October 24, 1982. She died in Tuscaloosa's Druid City Hospital and as noted below is buried in Moundville. She has been inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame. 

in

Source: BhamWiki

Source: subztv

Source: subztv

Howell in In Gay Madrid

Source: Dr. Macro's 

Howell made an uncredited appearance in this 1933 short film featuring Ted Healy and His Stooges, soon to become known as the Three Stooges.

Source: Wikipedia

This compilation film was released in 1974 to celebrate MGM's 50th anniversary. Howell's musical number from Free and Easy is included. 

Source: subztv

Source: IMDB

Source: Alabama Women's Hall of Fame

Howell is buried in the cemetery at the Carthage Presbyterian Church in Moundville.

Source: Find-A-Grave

Movies with Alabama Connections (7): The Alabama Hills

On the eastern slope of the Serra Nevada Mountains in Inyo County, California, is an area of rock formations known as the Alabama Hills. The name originated in the exploits of the CSS Alabama during the Civil War. Prospectors mining for gold in the area and sympathetic to the Confederate cause began naming their claims after the warship. Eventually the entire area had that name.

In 1969 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management designated almost 30,000 acres of public land in that region as the Alabama Hills Recreation Area. The Hills are a popular spot for hikers, rock climbers, photographers, etc.

What does all this have to do with the movies? Well, quite a bit, actually. In the early 1920's Hollywood filmmakers discovered the Hills and since then the formations have been featured in numerous productions. The Internet Movie Database has 363 titles of movies and TV series episodes with the Alabama Hills-Lone Pine area as filming locations. The Museum of Western Film History in the town of Lone Pine documents that heritage in this area about three hours north of Hollywood.

Of course, many western films and series have used the area to film. But the Alabama Hills have also been used by productions as varied as Gunga Din, Gladiator, Django Unchained and the science fiction series Firefly. Alabama is thus connected in this minor way to many Hollywood productions.

In March 2019 18,000 acres of federal land were designated the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area. 

Charles Michael Morfin's 2014 book Location Filming in the Alabama Hills documents over 500 productions in the area. 

  

The photograph above shows some typical rock formations in the Alabama Hills. The one below shows the area that served as the Khyber Pass in the 1939 film Gunga Din. 

Source for both photographs: Wikipedia

Movies with Alabama Connections (5): Bayou

If you examine this film's entry at the Internet Movie Database [IMDB], you'd never know there are Alabama connections. But hey, I found some.

In the September 5, 1956, issue of the Mobile Press-Register, the following notice appeared. "Harold Daniels has been named by the American National Films, newly organized Mobile motion picture producing company, as director of its first film, 'Bitter Swamp.' Production on the film is scheduled to begin Oct. 1 on location in Louisiana." 

The Saturday, June 1, 1957, issue of the newspaper had more information about the film. "Big, blonde Peter Graves, star of the Mobilian produced film 'Bayou' stood up in the Admiral Semmes Hotel last night and delivered himself of an address on Hollywood methods...Michael Ripps, Mobile producer of the film, told of some of the difficulties experienced in shooting on the Louisiana location."

So we learn several things from these two brief paragraphs about Bayou, which had its original release in June 1957. American National Films, a Mobile company, produced the picture. According to the IMDB, Bayou was the firm's only movie. As mentioned in the first notice, Harold Daniels did indeed direct the film. In addition to his 19 credits as an actor, Daniels directed 24 feature and TV movies including My World Dies Screaming in 1958 and House of the Black Death in 1964. A native of Buffalo, New York, he died in 1971.

The movie was filmed on location around Barataria Bay in Louisiana. Executive Producer Michael A. Ripps has several other credits in the IMDB. He is listed as writer of The Fat Black Pussycat [1963] and producer of Common Law Wife [1963] among a few other classics. Edward I. Fessler is listed as the author of both the story and screenplay for the film; it's the only credit given for him at the Internet Movie Database. By the time of first release the movie's title had been changed and it would acquire another title on re-release. United Artists distributed Bayou but the film did poorly despite such a major firm's support.

The tag line for initial release, as seen on the poster below, was "Somewhere, a 15-year old girl may be a teenager...in the Cajun country, she's a woman full-grown!...and every Bayou man knows it." So does Martin Davis, a young architect from New York, who comes to New Orleans on business and is taken to a carnival in Cajun country. There he meets Marie, the teenager, who's working to support her father and is lusted after by Ulysses, a brutal local store owner who has attempted to rape her. Read the summary at Wikipedia or find a copy of the film if you can to see how this New York vs. Cajun competition turned out.

Peter Graves played the architect; he would go on to a prominent career on television in Mission Impossible and other programs. The role of Ulysses fell to Tim Carey, a character actor who had appeared in such classics as East of Eden and Paths of Glory. Ed Nelson, who would go on to later fame in the TV series Peyton Place, and Jonathan Haze, largely known for a role in the original Little Shop of Horrors, were also in the cast. 

Marie, the cause of it all, was played by Lita Milan, whose acting career was a mix of film and television roles. She is probably best remembered as the female lead in Paul Newman's western, The Left Handed Gun [1958]. The Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen web site has much detail about her life and acting. Unfortunately, according to an article from 2013, she was at that time living in poverty in Madrid, Spain.  

As noted above, Bayou did not perform well during its first release. In 1961 rights to the film were purchased, and it became Poor White Trash which circulated on the drive-in circuit around the South for years. The film should not be confused with another one of that title released in 2000. I have no idea if the movie is currently available in any format or via streaming. Please enlighten us in the comment section if you have more information! 

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Graves in 1967

Source: Wikipedia 

Lita Milan on the lobby card for Bayou 

I doubt that's the Cajun country of Louisiana behind her, but Ms. Milan probably made good use of this sultry look in Bayou. 

Ed Nelson in his role as Dr. Michael Rossi in the TV version of Peyton Place

Source: Wikipedia

Jonathan Haze in his most famous role in the 1960 Roger Corman film Little Shop of Horrors

Source: Wikipedia 

Movies with Alabama Connections (4): Lifeboat

I saw this Hitchcock film again recently, and thought I would include it in this series of blog posts. The presence of two Alabama natives who became well-known actresses for several decades seemed connection enough. I enjoyed the film as much this time as I have previous viewings.

Despite her fame as both an actress and a personality over many decades, Huntsville native Tallulah Bankhead made few movies. She had a spectacular career on stage both in New York City and London. She expanded her reach on radio and late in her career on television. Although she made films as early as 1918 and as late as 1966, her best known one is the 1944 Lifeboat.   

That film has several notable features. The entire setting is the titular lifeboat in the North Atlantic during World War II. The boat's passengers are mostly survivors of a merchant marine ship with civilians aboard that sank in a naval battle. They are soon joined by a seaman from the German U-boat that also sank. The film is a fascinating juxtaposition of efforts at survival and passionate moral debate.

Tallulah plays a well known journalist and manages to look spectacular throughout most of her time at sea. In addition to Bankhead, the cast includes John Hodiak, Walter Slezak, William Bendix and Hume Cronyn--four actors who had significant careers in Hollywood and beyond. Novelist John Steinbeck wrote the film's story. Hitchcock makes his usual cameo in a very funny way that I won't spoil for those who haven't seen the movie. 

Birmingham native Mary Anderson plays the other female in the boat. She grew up in the city and attended Howard College before embarking on her acting career. Born in 1918, she died in April 2014 age 96. In addition to Lifeboat, she appeared in Gone with the Wind and numerous other films and television roles. Her brother James was also an actor; he appeared in To Kill a Mockingbird. 

I plan to do a more extensive post on Mary Anderson in the series on Alabama film actresses before 1960.   

Tallulah Bankhead [1902-1968] in 1941

Source: Wikipedia

Anderson with actor Charles Russell in Behind Green Lights (1946)

Source: Wikipedia

Movies with Alabama Connections (2): 100 Rifles

OK, ok, this "connection" is pretty minor, but get used to it; there will be more such postings. After all, there are a number of films where the state or one of its cities pops up briefly--Tuscaloosa as a joke in a Marx Brothers film, for instance.

That city appears in a joke in another movie, House of Bones. A crew of ghost hunters for a TV show are setting up their equipment in a haunted house, and two of them begin a discussion about the reality of supernatural phenomenon. One guy says to the other something along the lines of "The scariest thing I ever saw was a girl in a bar in Tuscaloosa."

Well. Don't you envy the kind of research I have to do to come up with this stuff?

Meanwhile, let's move along. Today's example of a fleeting Alabama film reference comes from 100 Rifles. This 1969 western was based on a novel by Robert MacLeod published three years earlier and stars Raquel Welch and two former football players, Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds.

Brown's gridiron career lasted a bit longer than Reynolds' did; in 2002, Sporting News declared him to be the greatest professional foootball player ever. Reynolds' college career ended with an injury in his first game at Florida State. However, both have done a fair amount of acting over the years.

Brown plays a deputy sheriff from Arizona who crosses into Mexico to find and arrest Reynolds' character, Yaqui Joe. Joe has robbed an Arizona bank to buy rifles for the Yaquis to help fight Mexican government repression. Yaqui Joe is actually a half-breed; his mother was Yaqui, but his father hailed from Alabama.

And there you have it. You can read more details about the film's story and behind the scenes during filming at the Wikipedia article linked above or the film's entry in the Spaghetti Western Database. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, but I remember it as being pretty good. I do happen to like westerns, but the presence of Raquel Welch is reason enough to watch.

  

Source: Wikipedia 

Cut! Movies & TV Shows Set in Birmingham

            Recently that gushing fountain of interesting stuff, the io9.com site, ran a piece on “the most popular television show set in every state.” The original list was developed by Business Insider magazine and considered show longevity, audience size, critical response, awards and cultural impact. The list included Bonanza in Nevada, Mary Tyler Moore in Minnesota, In the Heat of the Night in Mississippi and The Walking Dead in Georgia.

And for Alabama? Why, a show set right here in Birmingham, Any Day Now. That article started me thinking about other tv shows and films set in the Magic City.  Here’s what I’ve found so far.

One category of such productions that may come to mind first is documentaries. Spike Lee’s film 4 Little Girls is a well-known example. Released in June 1997, it chronicles the September 1963 bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church and its aftermath. Produced by Home Box Office, the film appeared briefly in theaters and has been released on DVD. The song “Birmingham Sunday” by Richard and Mimi Farina and sung by Joan Baez [Mimi’s sister] is used in the film. Sins of the Father, a television docudrama based on the role of Bobby Frank Cherry in this event, was first broadcast in January, 2002.  

Source: Wikipedia

Source: IMDB.com

 

A “reality” television series set in the area premiered on the MTV channel in August, 2006. Two-a-Days explored the on and off-field lives of players on the highly-successful Hoover High School football team. The show consisted of 16 episodes; a second season began in January 2007. A third season was planned but scuttled in the wake of problems that surfaced in the school’s athletic program and in the personal life of head football coach Rush Propst. Both seasons were released on DVD.

Source: Amazon

 

Other documentaries and reality shows have featured Birmingham topics and people. The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement [2011] focuses on the role of African-American barber Mr. Armstrong as he is inducted into the Foot Soldiers Hall of Fame and reacts to the election of Barak Obama. Mighty Times: The Children’s March [2004] chronicles an event in the city in May, 1963; the film won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, Short Subject.  A 1985 Canadian production looked at Jazz in the Magic City.

The 2013 film Skanks tells the story of a local group of actors who produced an original drag musical. She’s a Lady: Memoir of a Downtown Theatre is a 2006 documentary about the Lyric. The Amandas is a 2012 Style Network home makeover program featuring local resident Amanda LeBlanc and her team. The A&E Network crime show The First 48 featured the Birmingham Police Department in episodes beginning in February 2009. City native Robert Clem released one of his documentaries, Jefferson County Sound, in 2012; it profiled several local gospel quartets and has been shown on Alabama Public Television. No doubt many other city people and topics have turned up in film and television documentaries.

Several fictional film and television productions have also featured Birmingham. The earliest one I have been able to find is Camp Meetin’, a 17-minute short released in 1936. A church congregation has an open-air tent meeting to raise money so their pastor can be sent to a conference in Birmingham. Acting in the film are members of the African-American Hall Johnson Choir, a group famous at the time. Johnson and his choir were associated with Marc Connelly’s play The Green Pastures, which had great success on Broadway and in national and international tours. A film version was released in 1936, and Camp Meetin’ may have been made to capitalize on their fame. Since I haven’t seen this short, I am not sure any scenes are actually set in Birmingham.

A film released in April 1976 has plenty of Birmingham connections. Stay Hungry is based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Charles Gaines, a graduate of Birmingham-Southern. The film is entirely set in Birmingham and extensive filming was done in the city. Jeff Bridges plays Craig Blake, a young man who needs one more parcel to complete a shady real estate deal. He visits the gym located there and is attracted to both the receptionist played by Sally Field and the lifestyle of the bodybuilders including one played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won a Golden Globe award for his acting debut. An article about the filming can be found here and of course at the Bhamwiki site.

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Bhamwiki.com

 

Local filming was done around the city and included such places as the Bank for Savings Building, a house on Mountain Brook Parkway, Joy Young Restaurant, the Country Club of Birmingham, Boutwell Auditorium and the fire escape of the Lyric Theatre. The movie’s Olympic Gym was located downtown on 2^nd Avenue North .

Sally Field has noted that the film furthered her career by showcasing her talent beyond The Flying Nun sitcom and other tv work she was known for at the time. Arnold Schwarzenegger has described how friendly his reception as “Mr. Universe” was in the city. Other well-known people in the cast include Fannie Flagg, Joanna Cassidy, Scatman Crothers, Robert Englund and Ed Begley, Jr. The gym owner was played by R.G. Armstrong, born and raised in the Birmingham area, who had a long career as a character actor in numerous films and television episodes.

A more recent film is also set in the Magic City. Clubhouse was released last October and according to the Internet Movie Database description, “is set in a stately old home in Birmingham, Alabama.” “Sinister characters” attempt to take the home from its “humble” owner.  Unfortunately, the IMDb entry does not say where the movie was filmed. Has anyone seen it?

And what about Any Day Now? As far as I know, it’s the only scripted television series set in the city. The CW’s current series Hart of Dixie is set in a fictional small town in south Alabama. These may be the only two scripted television series set in the state.

Source: epguides.com

Any Day Now ran on the Lifetime network from August 1998 until March 2002 for a total of 88 hour-long episodes. Annie Potts and Lorraine Toussaint played middle aged versions of two childhood friends—one white, the other black—who grew up in Birmingham in the 1960s. Potts’ character has remained in town, where she and her husband and two children struggle financially. Toussaint’s character has become a successful attorney in Washington, D.C., but when her father dies she moves back, sets up a practice, and resumes the friendship.
Each episode featured scenes from the lives of the two women in both the past and present. The show ended after four seasons because Potts chose not to renew her contract so she could spend more time with family. According to the IMDb entry, at least some filming was done in Birmingham.  The show does not seem to have been released on DVD but is apparently available on HuluPlus.

This past spring Moms' Night Out appeared in movie theaters. The comedy was filmed in various locations around Birmingham and Shelby County.

Source: IMDB.com

 

If you have seen any of these productions and have information or comments, please feel free to leave them below. I’m sure I haven’t included some productions available, as well as single episodes of series that were set in Birmingham. There may be an update posting in the future. And then there’s a potential post on movies and tv shows filmed but not set in Birmingham, and another one on novels and short stories that take place here, and yet another one on the poetry about Birmingham, and…who knows?

 

A version of this piece appeared on DiscoverBirmingham.org in February 2014.