After four months of renovations, the Film Society Center theater in Center City is ready to relaunch next week. And while its new bar and lobby remain locked away and hidden for the time being, audiences can already see one major addition on the back of the building.
MORE: With new theater company Relic, acting couple makes Philly part of the show
Splashed across the brick wall on Sansom Street is an eye-catching tribute to movies set and shot in Philadelphia — plus the local organizations that support filmmaking and film culture. “Films Shaped by a City,” a new mural by artist Marian Bailey, will be officially dedicated in a Friday ceremony. But it’s been getting early buzz from curious onlookers since its completion.
“I have driven past this wall quite a few times and now that the mural is up I like to pass by it when I can,” Bailey said. “And so it’s always fun to see people just stopping and looking at it because it’s so colorful. I try to hear what people are pointing out, but I don’t always capture that. So I’m definitely curious to see which ones people are more drawn to.”
The project, over two years in the making, was a collaboration between Mural Arts, Philadelphia Film Society and BlackStar Projects. Representatives from the latter two groups and others formed an advisory panel to finalize a list of movies and groups to feature in the mural; they also used a public survey of Philadelphians to help guide the choices.
The local institutions featured include PFS and BlackStar Projects but also Scribe Video Center, the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, cinéSPEAK, Lightbox Film Center, the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival, PhillyCAM, ReelBlack, Secret Cinema and the Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival. Departed rental chain TLA Video and the shuttered QFest also get shout-outs.
As for the movies, the mural contains 11. The oldest are from 1976, while the newest premiered in 2020. See if you can spot them all on Sansom. Here’s a little background info on each:
12 Monkeys
This sci-fi film opens in 2035 in a post-apocalyptic Philadelphia. But the crew shot in the 1995 version of the city, using Eastern State Penitentiary, Girard College and the Pennsylvania Convention Center as some of its sets.
Blow Out
As a fictional serial killer called the Liberty Bell Strangler terrorizes the city, a sound editor tries to expose a massive political conspiracy and cover-up. That’s the basic plot of this 1981 thriller, directed by Philly native Brian De Palma — who also used his hometown for the chase scene in “Dressed to Kill.”
Concrete Cowboy
This recent Netflix movie dramatizes the urban cowboy culture of North Philadelphia and features real riders from the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club. Bailey was especially excited to incorporate “Concrete Cowboy” into the mural.
“I love going to like Clark Park and seeing the cowboys on their horses, giving rides to children,” she said. “So I wanted to make sure that that was represented. Especially because we live in this metro area and every time I see them on their horses, I just get really, really excited.”
Mikey and Nicky
Two crooked pals hide out from the mob and work through long-standing frustrations in this ’70s classic. Director Elaine May, another Philly native, filmed in the city over the summer of 1973. Locations included the former Nixon Theatre on 52nd Street, the Woodlands cemetery and former Essex Hotel on Filbert Street.
“Something from a different era can really tell you a lot about a place,” Bailey added.
Night Catches Us
Set in 1976, this historical drama follows a former Black Panther returning to Philadelphia for his father’s funeral. “Night Catches Us” shot in the city in 2009 and features a score by the Roots. Its director Tanya Hamilton, who lived in Philly for several years, apparently fought her producers to keep the story set in Germantown.
Philadelphia
The Boss penned an Oscar-winning song about the “Streets of Philadelphia” for this LGBTQ+ legal drama. The trial scenes unfold in courtroom 243 inside City Hall, per the production notes, while other scenes feature the University of Pennsylvania library and former Spectrum arena.
Rocky
No Philly film tribute would be complete without the city’s unofficial mascot Rocky Balboa. For this piece of the mural, Bailey tried to lean on familiar iconography without making a direct copy of the famous statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
“The big thing here is the Rocky statue, but we didn’t want it to be too reminiscent of that,” she said. “And so we settled on an Italian flag and it says ‘Rocky’ and there is still Rocky with his hands in the air. But it doesn’t look like things that you’ve seen before.”
Silver Linings Playbook
Jenkintown native Bradley Cooper stars with Jennifer Lawrence in this romantic dramedy about grief, mental illness and the Birds. While “Silver Linings Playbook” filmed its dance finale at the Franklin Residences, perhaps the most crucial scene takes place inside the Llanerch Diner on 95 E Township Line Rd.
The Sixth Sense
Pedestrians passing by the mural won’t find a painted miniature of M. Night Shyamalan, but the Penn Valley filmmaker is represented through his breakout hit “The Sixth Sense.” The 1999 film’s title is hidden inside an eye hovering over the left side of the mural. The imagery, according to Bailey, is a riff on the movie’s oft-quoted line, “I see dead people.”
The Watermelon Woman
Temple and Rutgers alum Cheryl Dunye set her feature debut in Philadelphia. The 1996 movie, now considered a landmark LGBTQ+ film, stars the director herself as a video store clerk trying to make a documentary about a Black actress credited only as “the watermelon woman” in a classic Hollywood film.
Trading Places
This modern spin on “The Prince and the Pauper” takes place in the city during Christmastime. “Trading Places” transformed the Curtis Institute of Music into a members-only club and the Community College of Philadelphia into a police station over its weekslong winter shoot. Bailey painted stars Dan Akyroyd and Eddie Murphy in a pose similar to the one they strike on the movie’s poster, but set them inside a $50 bill with a phrase from the final scene — “Looking good, feeling good.”
“I just think that’s such a goofy movie,” Bailey said. “And even the illustration that I came up with for it is really goofy.”
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
| @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.