Tugboat Annie (1933)
Scrappy old Marie Dressler pilots the tugboat Narcissus around the waters of “Secoma” while husband Wallace Beery, that darn scamp, nips at the booze. She’s got high hopes, though, for their son, to whom she exclaims, “Say, you know, your Pop ’n’ me’s gonna bust right open with pride the day we see you goin’ kersloppin’ past the old Narcissus on the bridge of your own liner!”
You kinda had to be there; it’s a 1933 sort of thing.
Dressler’s titular character was the creation of Norman Reilly Raine, a University of Washington lecturer, whose several stories about Tugboat Annie appeared in The Saturday Evening Post. He’d been inspired by Tacoma’s pioneering Thea Foss, a Norwegian immigrant who’d launched what would become Seattle’s still-operating Foss Maritime Company. Foss was nothing like Raine’s character or Dressler’s broad interpretation of it, but Raine’s research—through conversations with the Foss family—gave the movie tug-industry accuracy.
Hollywood had never paid us any attention before Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer leased a Foss tug, the Wallowa, and filmed it as it chugged around Lake Union. The movie had its world premiere here and went on to be MGM’s most profitable film that year. Wallowa didn’t fare too badly, either: It was rebuilt, renamed Arthur Foss, set speed records, served in the Navy during World War II, and was retired as a National Historic Landmark moored in Lake Union Park by the Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center.
How It Defined Us: Hollywood finally envisioned Seattle as a place that could be populated by big stars.
The Slender Thread (1965)
Sydney Pollack made his feature-film directorial debut with this earnest if overheated drama featuring Sidney Poitier as a Seattle Crisis Clinic volunteer who tries to keep suicidal caller Anne Bancroft holding onto life. Pollack shot everything but the interior of the crisis center on location. Two years earlier It Happened at the World’s Fair glorified Seattle Center; The Slender Thread took a more honest look at the rest of the city.
And what a look. The opening credits begin with a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the city, circa 1965, and for the next five minutes, accompanied by Quincy Jones’s propulsive score, the camera never rests. It gazes at Lake Washington; hovers above downtown; rushes toward the tip of the Space Needle; ponders a depressed Bancroft in the Pacific Science Center courtyard; zips across Lake Union; plunges into the University of Washington’s Red Square; follows Poitier through campus on a bike; settles into the Ballard Locks, where Bancroft’s husband glowers on a fishing boat; catches Poitier driving on the Ballard Bridge; and, finally, cuts to a desperate Bancroft racing in the opposite direction.
Pollack, who’d win an Oscar two decades later for Out of Africa, winced about his first post-TV assignment. “You have to take Dramamine to watch that movie,” he told Mark Harris, author of Pictures at a Revolution. “I was trying so hard to shake off the stigma of television that everything was moving and zooming and panning. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”
How It Defined Us: Modern moviegoers got their first chance to view Seattle as a bona fide metropolis.
Published: December 2009
I’ll add Fear and Mad Love.
Some nice Seattle scenes in those.
Nice article, I have worked in the movie industry in the northwest since 1983 and long for the good old days of 1-2 Hollywood produced movie a year coming to Seattle. Unfortunately those days are long gone, most of the “Seattle” movies are made in Vancouver and at best come “down” here for only a few days just to rip off enough shots to make the movie seem like it is Seattle. After falling way behind other states with tax breaks for productions in Washington the tide may be turning, however when combined with a declining crew base, and lack of infrastructure, not to mention the traffic gridlock it may never come back. It is a shame most of my work has been out of state where quite frankly movie making is embraced as the job creating, clean industry that it is. But thank you for not mentioning those Seattle rip off movies so many others do.
Ten Things I Hate About You?
Although not a big screen movie, The Night Strangler (1973) not only used Seattle really well, it actually got me to spend the money to go on the Underground Seattle tour.
Cool! You know, the independent Cap Hill video store On 15th Video has a whole Seattle section…bet if you browsed that you’d come up with even more…
I really do think that we can take Seattle to a new level in film making. I would personally like to be involved in promoting such. Jobert1234@aol.com. We recently made a movie “Poppies, Odyssey of an Opium Eater” based on a true story (and book of the same name) of Eric Detzer’s life as a opium addict. Eric lives in Seattle and wrote the book about his addiction to wild opium poppies, which truly do grow wild in the Pacific Northwest. Eric was a well respected (master’s degree) social worker who fought child abuse, while scouring the country-side for the poppies. It is a story of his “spiral down hill” !!! If you are interested, we have a web site with a trailer….. www.poppiesthemovie.com ….. We would love some feedback about how to promote and distribute the movie in the Northwest. Happy New Year to you all. Josephine
Thanks for the article. I would like to add Assassins and Disclosure since I was an extra in both movies. I was next to Sly in one of my scenes. Fond memories!