Today we took a mid-Memorial weekend day drive, from Oakland. We’d planned a drive up to the Russian River area, thinking to drive up the coast with a stop in Bodega Bay for lunch. We left at 11am; it took 4 hours to get to Bodega Bay. Partly due to traffic getting thru SF before the Golden Gate Bridge, mostly the slow drive (including some traffic) along Route 1, a beautiful drive once you’re along the coast, but not fast.<\/p>\n
So we mosied around Bodega Bay and called it a day. We had oysters at Fisherman’s Cove<\/a>, and a nice early dinner at Terrapin Creek Cafe Restaurant<\/a>, which I am happy to plug.<\/p>\n Bodega Bay, of course, is the setting of the Hitchcock film The Birds, and I was fascinated to look around see if I could spot any specific locations. The only one I saw was the wharf area where, in the film, locals complain in a diner, Tippi Hedren is trapped in a phone booth as the birds attack, and this attack triggers a gasoline fire at a fill-up station. The wharf is still there, the diner greatly expanded.<\/p>\n We drove all the way around the bay, wondering if the house where Rod Taylor’s character (Mitch Brenner) lived actually existed. No sign of it.<\/p>\n Of course, there are any number of websites (and I have a book, somewhere, about film locations), that explain in great detail what scenes were shot where. E.g., this one, http:\/\/www.movie-locations.com\/movies\/b\/birds.html<\/a>, which explains that schoolhouse where the birds sat on power lines before attacking children was actually a few miles inland, not right above the bay as it seems in the film; and this one, http:\/\/www.bodegabay.com\/index.php\/visitor-info\/articles-reviews-and-stories\/41-the-birds-and-bodega-bay<\/a>, which explains that the Brenner [Rod Taylor’s character] house was used only for exterior shots and has long since been demolished. (The interior scenes of this house and other scenes were filmed on soundstages back in LA.)<\/p>\n No surprise of course; all films of this era mixed live locations, usually with somewhat fictitious geography, and scenes filmed on sets in Hollywood. <\/p>\n But it was impressive to see the general area of Bodega Bay, and how it did overall resemble the locale of the film. I don’t have a conscious bucket list — but visiting this location is something I’ve long thought about, and am happy to have fulfilled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today we took a mid-Memorial weekend day drive, from Oakland. We’d planned a drive up to the Russian River area, thinking to drive up the coast with a stop in Bodega Bay for lunch. We left at 11am; it took … Continue reading