Friday Fantasies: Key West in the Movies

In late October, I wrote a post about literary trips – that is, traveling to places that have featured prominently in classic and modern literature. As I wrote then, it's hard to walk through the historic streets of New Orleans and not think about a slew of famous stories, from A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) to Interview with the Vampire (1976).

Equally fun, though, is traveling to places that have featured prominently in the movies, and though New Orleans is a popular backdrop, it's certainly not the only American city to have made an appearance on the silver screen. While traveling through the Florida Keys with Dan, I discovered that Key West has witnessed its share of film crews, too. For instance, the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum – a lovely, two-story house where the famous writer penned some of his greatest novels – was used in the film License to Kill (1989). Hint: It's where M revokes James Bond's “license to kill,” and Bond (played by Timothy Dalton) subsequently defies M by leaping over the second-floor balcony and fleeing away on his own mission.

Of course, even cooler than that was the fact that, while staying in Key West, we heard that our hotel – The Eden House – had served as the main location for a film called CrissCross (1992), starring Goldie Hawn. In fact, Michael Eden, the longtime owner of the Eden House – which is essentially a collection of breezy buildings centered around a stunning pool area – even had the chance to dine with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell during the making of the movie, but he turned it down. (When I told Dan that story, he just about fainted – Kurt Russell, after all, has been one of his favorite actors for decades.)

Because movie-making is a big business in this country, it's probably true that most American cities have played host to a film crew at one time or another. So, what are your favorite film-related spots – in this country or otherwise?