Finding fertile ground for film
On film, Riverdale hardly ever plays Riverdale.
When Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn’s characters in Bringing Up Baby visit a fictional estate in Riverdale owned by the Peabody family, it’s not shot in the Estate area. When the most prominent street gangs of the city meet at Van Cortlandt Park at the beginning of 1979’s Warriors, Riverside Park in Manhattan fills in for Vannie.
Likewise, the many movies and television shows that have been filmed in the area usually represent other places — like Kansas, Harvard University, Queens or Brooklyn.
More than 50 years ago, Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty made their way to Horace Mann to film scenes for Splendor in the Grass. The classic Elia Kazan motion picture uses the prestigious school as the setting for a high school in Kansas.
Manhattan College’s claim to fame is a quad that looks similar to Harvard’s. The school was first featured in 1993, in Six Degrees of Separation starring Will Smith, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellan. Years later, in 2001, Manhattan college played Harvard again with a small yet significant role in A Beautiful Mind, which won four Academy Awards, including for Best Picture.
In the Manhattan College scene, John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, has a heartbreaking reunion with his friend’s niece on the quad before being nabbed by Ed Harris’s character at the bottom of the stairs that leads to Manhattan College’s faculty parking lot.
The 2008 film Doubt, starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, was filmed at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, which was transformed into a Catholic school in the Bronx for the storyline. For that movie, Riverdale served as more than just the backdrop. The story was inspired by Riverdale native and Sister of Charity Margaret McEntee.
Most recently, Dewitt Clinton High School was used to film scenes from Gun Hill Road. The independent flick about a man who comes home to the Bronx after serving three years in prison made it to the Sundance and Bronx film festivals this year.
Kingsbridge bars also filled in for Brooklyn and Queens locales.
Keywords
Bringing Up Baby, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, film, filming, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Splendor in the Grass, Elia Kazan, Manhattan College, Six Degrees of Separation, Will Smith, Beautiful Mind, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, Ian McKellan, Russell Crowe, Doubt, Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, College of Mount Saint Vincent, Dewitt Clinton High School, Gun Hill Road, Sundance, The Devil’s Own, The Accidental Husband, Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Dean, I Am Legend, Going the Distance, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, The Seven Ups, from 1977, The Object of My Affection, Lady Rose’s, Daughter, Boardwalk Empire, Van Cortlandt House Museum, HBO, Frank Sinatra, Martin Balsam, Contract on Cherry Street, movies, TV, Adam Wisnieski
