Outtakes

More must-sees, gossip, and guilty pleasures.

It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963)

Photo: Getty Images

The King had his eye on the Emerald City in It Happened at the World’s Fair.

When Elvis Presley shakes his head in awestruck disbelief after watching the elevator ascend the Space Needle, Seattle suddenly seems like a happenin’ place. Off-screen, the King dated a local teen and his presence here inspired crazed fans to clamber up the fire escape of his hotel. He must have been a good influence on the set, though: The six-year-old girl (Vicky Tiu) whom he befriends during the fair grew up to become the first lady of Hawaii in 1997; the 11-year-old boy who kicks him in the shins grew up to be, well, him (it’s Kurt Russell, who portrayed Elvis in a 1979 TV movie).

Harry in Your Pocket (1973)

Trish Van Devere catches Michael Sarrazin’s clumsy effort to swipe her watch in King Street Station; she’s intrigued instead of ticked off. They head to bed then fall in with fleet-fingered James Coburn, who teaches them the in-depth diversionary tactics of professional pickpockets. Real-life Mayor Wes Uhlman falls prey to Coburn’s methods in a cameo appearance at a Seattle First National Bank.

McQ (1974)

“John Wayne is McQ,” trumpets the trailer, “and this time, for the first time, he’s a cop!” The Duke, horseless and lawless in an attempt to out-dirty Dirty Harry, zooms angrily around Seattle in a Trans Am hoping to nab whoever made off with “$2 million in junk.” (He needs a better map: Streetwise Seattleites will notice that during one chase he’s traveling in a circle.) When he storms into Pioneer Square’s old J&M Café to kick some drug-kingpin ass, keep an eye out for the guy watching TV at the bar who gives McQ some bad news. That’s real-life J&M co-owner Harry Poll, who negotiated a cameo for himself.

The Parallax View (1974)

Director Alan J. Pakula’s superior conspiracy thriller starring Warren Beatty granted the Space Needle real gravitas thanks to an assassination sequence that boasts a scramble for the gunman right across the tower’s top. Cinematographer Gordon Willis downplays the perils of filming that pursuit as well as the decision to keep it to a single shot: “On a place like the Needle, you minimize the equipment and define things in the simplest possible ways. Your taste dictates what that might be. There’s no need for anything else.” Simple or no, the chilling spectacle put our landmark on the movie map as a terrifying place to perish.

Frances (1982)

Jessica Lange gives an Oscar-­nominated performance as West Seattle’s rebellious Frances Farmer (1913–1970), who went to Hollywood and went nuts. Former Seattle Post-Intelligencer film critic William Arnold sticks by the controversial claim in Shadowland, his 1978 Farmer biography, that she’d likely been lobotomized. Evidently the people behind Frances believed him: Arnold was part of a group that sued the producers for cribbing from the bio without crediting him. “It went all the way through federal court,” Arnold sighs now. “And the ultimate, precedent-setting decision was that you can’t protect what are facts.” Facts aren’t big in Frances, though. The movie features a glittering recreation of the Paramount Theatre premiere of Farmer’s only Tinseltown triumph, Come and Get It—which in fact premiered at First and Pike’s long-gone Liberty Theatre.

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Published: December 2009