Father Pitt

Tag: Movies

  • Stanley Parlors, Carrick

    Date stone with inscription: 1929/Stanley Parlors

    This old bowling alley has some interesting history. It was built in 1929 with two floors of duckpin bowling. After conversion to ten-pin bowling, it petered out in the 1990s, but not before it had been used as a location in the movie Kingpin, starring Woody Harrelson. Father Pitt has not seen that movie, but according to Wikipedia it has a reputation as somewhere between bad and mediocre, and it was number 2 on someone’s list of Woody Harrelson’s best films.

    Stanley Parlors

    The building itself is interesting. Though the ground floor has been altered, the second floor, with its arcaded balcony, is eye-catching and makes a strong impression on the streetscape of Brownsville Road.

    Balcony
    Stanley Parlors
    Stanley Parlors
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

  • “Steel Preferred” Films in McKeesport

    “Taylor Allerdice was accustomed to meeting all kinds of situations but here was something entirely different. So far as he knew, it had never been done before, except in the making of an occasional educational film, but this man didn’t look as though he were concerned in making just the short length educational subject.

    “ ‘What kind of a picture?’ he asked.

    “ ‘What we call a feature presentation, Mr. Allerdice. I have brought a company of players, including the principals and important members of the cast, cameramen and the necessary crew to handle the mechanical end, across the continent to picturize in its actual locale Herschell. S. Hall’s Saturday Evening Post story Steel Preferred. The plant at the National Tube Company seems to be the one best suited to the requirements of the story.’ ”

    The entire article, “On Location in a Steel Mill,” appears in The Director for July, 1925.

  • Hollywood-on-the-Mon

    Location shooting can happen anywhere. Wherever you see a sign with three initials and an arrow, you can follow it to a movie shooting on location. (You can identify the location by the fleets of Haddad’s trucks parked nearby.) Sometimes, however, the signs are more specific, especially when parking is involved.