Hi There!

Linda Norris requested info about feature films, so I contcted George
Grella at the U of R, who is a Film prof. and does reviews, etc.  I
thought I'd forward his answer to the whole list, as I found it so
interesting.  Special note to Linda: I'd be interested in the final
list, so please let us know what you collect.  Thanks!  B)

George Grella wrote:

> Here are a few titles that may help your correspondent; perhaps it
> would be easier for you to send them along to her and she could get
> in touch with me directly for more information if I can come up with
> other stuff.
>
> Hitchcock's Spellbound has an important sequence in which Ingrid
> Bergman and Gregory Peck take the train to Rochester and stay there
> a day or so with her old professor.  I've always believed that
> Rochester made it into the movie because of Bergman's residence here
> off and on while her husband doing his own residency at Strong.
>
> The Lady in White, though a wretched work indeed, is supposed to take
> place around here.  The independent feature film Eerie is set around
> Rochester and the canal.  Shuffle Off to Buffalo appears in the movie
> 42nd Street.  The folks in Seneca Falls claim that their town is the
> Bedford Falls of It's a Wonderful Life--and Jimmy Stewart has a phnoe
> conversation about Rochester in the movie.  Also the mock documentary
> Dadetown, filmed in and about one of the upstate towns like Batavia
> or one of those, I can't remember which.  Of course, the new movie
> Buffalo 66 belongs on the list.  A much neglected little film based
> on a real story came out around 1980, set and shot in Buffalo--Hide
> in Plain Sight.  The film version of Frederick Exley's fine A Fan's
> Notes, though entirely awful, is meant to be taking place in the
> Watertown area, where he grew up and lived off and on and wrote
> about.
>
> I hope this helps.  There are others, I am sure, many of which I
> know but just can't think of at the moment.
>
> Yours,
> George Grella  <[log in to unmask]>

> > Linda Norris wrote:
> >
> > For a proposed series of public programs, I'm interested in feature
> > films that depict upstate New York.  Already on our list are
> > Ironweed, Nobody's Fool, and Last of the Mohicans.  Any other
> > suggestions--they don't have to be filmed upstate, just use upstate
> > as a setting or topic.  As well, I'd be interested in hearing about
> > documentary films on the region.