Salome, Where She Danced, 1945
Rod Cameron and Yvonne DeCarlo; directed by Charles Lamont; Universal; romantic action-adventure film about a dancer suspected of spying during the Austro-Prussian War who flees to Arizona; scenes filmed south of Carmel on a dirt road at the entrance to Garrapata Canyon and at Point Lobos.
Samurai, 1944
Paul Fung and Luke Chan; exploitation film with Japanese stereotypes running a spy operation; scenes filmed at G.T. Marsh & Co. oriental art collectors next to El Estero Park in Monterey, which was turned into a mysterious temple.
The Sandpiper, 1965
Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Eva Marie Saint and Charles Bronson; directed by Vincente Minnelli; MGM; love story about a liberated artist with an illegitimate son living in a Monterey beach shack and a dedicated, married and confused minister who is in charge of a school; Oscar winner for Best Song ("The Shadow of Your Smile"); scenes filmed in Monterey and Big Sur.
Sandy, 1926
Madge Bellamy and Leslie Fenton; directed by Harry Beaumont; a Jazz Age tragedy; scenes filmed at Carmel and Pebble Beach.
The Second Woman, 1951
Robert Young and Betsy Drake; directed by James Kern; United Artist; suspense drama about a man suspected in the death of his fiancee.
See America First, 1915
A series produced by Mutual Weekly Gaumont, for which scenes were filmed at Point Lobos, along the 17 Mile Drive and at various historic sites, including the Custom House in Monterey; also filmed were sea gills at Monterey's Wharf No. 2 and the old Point Lobos Canning Co., which was billed as the only abalone cannery in the world, getting its catch from divers who worked right near its front door in Whalers Cove.
Seems Like Old Times, 1980
Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase; directed by Jay Sandrich; Columbia; comedy about an innocent bank robber who takes refuge with his ex-wife who is married to the district attorney; scenes filmed in Carmel.
Sergeant Murphy, 1938
Ronald Reagan and Mary Maguire; directed by B. Reeves Eason; Warner Bros.; cavalry picture; James Cagney turned down the male lead; scenes filmed at the Presidio of Monterey, then a cavalry post; the cast and crew stayed at the old Hotel San Carlos (now the site of the Monterey Sheraton), where Reagan gave a dinner and party for the cavalry soldiers stationed at the Presidio who appeared in the movie but were barred by the Army from accepting any pay; Reagan was introduced in local newspaper accounts of the filming as a "former Midwest radio sports commentator, whose nickname was Dutch"; during the filming Reagan suffered a bruised shoulder when a horse went under him on a jump, but he was back on the set the next day "a bit lame but still game," according to the newspaper reports; the film crew spent $20,000 in Monterey.
Shadows, 1922
Lon Chaney, Harrison Ford and Marguerite DeLa Motte; directed by Tom Forman; Lichtman Studios; silent film in which Chaney plays a Chinese laundryman; scenes filmed at Whalers' Cove at Point Lobos, on Ocean Avenue in Carmel (including one scene with a wandering musician) and in Monterey at Fisherman's Wharf and in the 500 block of Larkin Street; the Larkin Street shots were night scenes and people in the neighborhood sat on the bank of a vacant lot across the street and watched for several evenings; huge klieg lights in front windows of nearby homes were set up to illuminate the street; the film crew promised to pay the residents for the inconvenience but never did; a large Chinese junk was built for the film and launched off the point Lobos Canning Co.'s wharf; members of the Monterey Civic Club were extras in a scene filmed at the waterfront, which showed the arrival of a minister.
Shock, 1946
Vincent Price, Lynn Bari, Frank Latimore and Annabel Shaw; directed by Alfred L. Werker; 20th Century Fox; suspense film about a woman in a hotel who sees a murder committed and is the target of an elaborate plan to silence her.
Sleeper, 1973
Woody Allen and Diane Keaton; directed by Allen; United Artists; comedy about a health food store owner who is frozen and wakes up 200 years later; scenes filmed at Rancho San Carlos in Carmel Valley; Bob Swanson was an extra in the film.
Small Town Girl, 1936
Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor, James Stewart, Binnie Barnes, Frank Craven, Elizabeth Patterson, Lewis Stone, Andy Devine, Isabel Jewell, Charley Grapewin, Robert Greig and Agnes Ayres; directed by William A. Wellman; MGM; romantic comedy about a woman who traps a handsome stranger into offering marriage when he's drunk and then sets out to win him when he's sober; based on a novel by Ben Ames Williams; known as a good example of MGM's production line of the mid-1930s with a group of established stars and good character actors helping up-and-coming performers; Oscar nominee for song ("My Flaming Heart"); scenes filmed along the 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, which stood in for the coast of Maine in the autumn; dozens of Peninsulans watched the filming, but none of the local people got jobs in front of the camera, although George Kinloch and Goldie Goldstein were put on the payroll as traffic directors; company of 35 actors and crew stayed at the old Hotel Del Monte in Monterey (now the Naval Postgraduate School).
The Snob, 1920
Soldier in the Rain, 1963
Jackie Gleason, Steve McQueen and Tuesday Weld; directed by Ralph Nelson; Allied Artists; a mix of comedy and tragedy as two sergeants plan for civilian life but one of them dies; scenes filmed at Fort Ord.
Sphere, 1998
Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson; directed by Barry Levinson; Warner Bros.; based on the Michael Crichton novel; science fiction; psychological drama about a group of scientists who go to the bottom of the sea to explore an alien spacecraft that crashed into the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1709; delicate golden-orange sea nettle jellies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium stood in for terrifying killers; jellies filmed at the aquarium's Outer Bay galleries by a film crew that came down from Vallejo, where the sets for "Sphere" were created in huge drydocks at the former Mare Island Naval Shipyards on San Francisco Bay.
Sporting Youth, 1923
Reginald Denny; Universal; scenes filmed at the old Hotel Del Monte in Monterey (now the Naval Postgraduate School), along the 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach and other scenic locations on the Monterey Peninsula; unusually heavy fog in August 1923 repeatedly delayed filming of exterior shots at the hotel.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986
The Voyage Home, 1986, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Catherine Hicks and Jane Wyatt; directed by Nimoy; Paramount; the Star Trek crew goes back in time to 1986 in San Francisco to Save the Whales; Oscar nominee for cinematography and musical score; scenes filmed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which stood in for a fictitious aquarium across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco; the San Francisco skyline appears on the sceen, put there by Hollywood artists, as a back drop to outdoor filming at the back of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
A Summer Place, 1959
Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Troy Donahue; Warner Bros.; romantic summer adventure of teen-agers and their elders on an island off the coast of Maine; scenes filmed at Pebble Beach and Point Lobos.
The Sunshine Gathers, 1924
documentary about California's fruit-growing industry made by George E. Stone; Scenes filmed at the Carmel Mission, Carmel River, elsewhere in the Carmel area and at Point Lobos; the film was done against a historical background, including the arrival of Father Junipero Serra who brought with him fruit trees from Spain; Monterey fishermen were used for the roles of soldiers and priests, and real soldiers from the Presidio of Monterey played the Indians.
Surf at Monterey, 1897
Thomas Edison Co.; short film; may have been among the earliest films ever available for public showing; released in October 1897 along with another Peninsula-made film, "Hotel Del Monte."
Susan Slade, 1961
Troy Donahue, Dorothy McGuire, Connie Stevens and Lloyd Nolan; written and directed by Delmer Daves; Warner Bros.; story about an engineer who brings his family back to San Francisco from Chile and his teen-age daughter who runs into troubles of the heart; scenes filmed at Cypress Point in Pebble Beach and Monterey, including the old train station, where the train was headed in the wrong direction; the granddaddy of the Prof. Toro movie list: the first film and the inspiration for the list.
Suspicion, 1941
Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Nigel Bruce, Cedric Hardwicke, May Whitty, Isabel Jeans, Heather Angel and Leo G. Carroll; directed by Alfred Hitchcock; RKO; suspense drama about a sedate young girl (Joan Fontaine) who marries a playboy (Cary Grant) and comes to suspect that he's trying to murder her; based on a novel, "Before the Fact," by Francis Iles; Hitchcock redid the finish, making a sudden switch to a happy ending to please studio bosses; Joan Fontaine won the 1941 Best Actress Oscar and the New York Film Critics Award and the film was nominated for Best Picture and for the musical score by Franz Waxman; background scenes for key elements in the movie filmed along the coastline between Carmel and Big Sur, which stood in for England (a potential land development deal very near Bixby Creek Bridge goes sour and Hitchcock's big finish is played out above the rocky coastline closer to Carmel; and there is footage of motoring up and down the scenic coastline); Joan Fontaine, whose sister is Olivia de Havilland, lives on the Monterey Peninsula; she appeared in about 50 films from 1935 to 1966, moving from being innocent, refined screen heroines to roles as sophisticated, sometimes scheming, worldly women.
Sword in the Desert, 1949
Dana Andrews, Jeff Chandler and Martha Toren; directed by George Sherman; written and produced by Robert Buckner who lived in Pebble Beach; suspense action drama about the underground smuggling refugees out of Europe to the Palestine Coast; scenes filmed at Del Monte Beach in Monterey, which stood in for the Palestinian shore; one of the extras who manned the oars of the landing craft was high school student John Anastasia; the big thrills came during the landings on the shore in heavy surf as boats pitched wildly into each other and several of the extras were swamped by the waves, but none was hurt, no children were used in the landings because of the hazards; 300 extras -- men, women and children -- were on the set from one to seven days, earning $15.50 a day; two special teachers were brought in to teach school half-a-day each day the children were on the set; it's a good thing the squid weren't running in Monterey Bay that day or the Promised Land would have become deserted, according to one wag during the filming of a beach scene using 100 extras, portraying lines of ragged and weary Jewish refugees landing in Palestine, most were Monterey fishermen of Sicillian descent who had had a poor season chasing fish; working title was "Sword in the Sand."
Our thanks to Joe Graziano of the Monterey County Herald for providing this information.
* - Indicates that Peninsula footage ended up on cutting room floor.
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