jackh@zehntel.UUCP (jack hagerty) (02/13/85)
> > And then there is "The Graduate" which supposedly takes place > partially in Berkeley. For a geographically related film, George Lucas' first professional effort, THX-1138, was filmed in the Bay Area. The "underground freeway" chase scene was filmed in the infamous Caldecott Tunnel which connects Berkeley with Orinda. Other underground scenes were filmed in sections of the (at the time unopened) BART subway. One in particular that I remember is when the hero (or someone) is supposedly climbing up the wall of an enormous vertical shaft. A sudden, involuntary flop of my personal reference frame showed me that he was actually crawling along the floor of the subway with the camera turned on its side! As for the meaning of the Subject line above, there is a very tiny part in the film which shows people using remote manipulators (mechanical hands) to handle some hazardous material. This was shot at General Electric's Vallecitos Nuclear Center near Pleasanton where both my parents work. My mom, being the plant nurse, was on site for the filming. She said it was a big thrill meeting actors like Donald Pleasance even though it weird because "they all had shaved heads." Of course, when the film opened locally, my folks went to go see it with some friends from work. They came back very dissapointed. "I didn't understand it at all" my mom said. "It was just about all these people wearing white with their heads shaved." And what about the scenes shot at VNC, which, after all is the whole reason they went? Well, they wound up relagated to some TV monitors playing in the background! Sic Transit Gloria! -- Jack Hagerty, Zehntel Automation Systems ...!ihnp4!zehntel!jackh