From vintage classics to modern blockbusters, hotels have always been a firm favourite with film directors looking to add a grandoise setting to their story.
If you and your other half are film buffs, or just love the idea of including some Hollywood glamour into your honeymoon, incorporate a stay at a world famous hotel that’s been used as a film location. The luxury travel experts at Kuoni have shared their fave Hollywood to inspire you.
Italy
The Please Garden (Alfred Hitchcock’s first film): Villa D’Este
Alfred Hitchock spent nearly every summer at the Villa d’Este and was completely enamoured with the beautiful surroundings. He filmed his first movie The Pleasure Garden on the hotel grounds in 1925. The hotel has over 150 rooms, all completely unique from one another with their own style and size. Hitchcock isn’t the only artist to fall in love with Villa d’Este; distinguished fashionistas have all fallen in love with the place including Calvin Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan and Paul Smith.
A Room with a View: Degli Orafi, Florence
The famous 1980’s film A Room with a View charts the romance between Miss Lucy Honeychurch, a young Edwardian women, with a free-spirited young man she meets in Italy. The couple first meet at a hotel in Florence, and modern-day visitors to the Degli Orafi hotel can stay in the exact room they meet, room 414 on the 4th floor. The view in question is from the room’s spectacular terrace which overlooks the Arno and Ponte Vecchio.
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The United States of America
Ocean’s 11: The Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas
The Bellagio is features a few times in Ocean’s 11. Firstly, the Las Vegas Boulevard entrance is seen when Saul arrives at the casino to place some big bets to get Terry Benedict’s attention. Saul walks right through the main entrance underneath the hotel’s distinctive glass flower chandelier. Also, whilst the movie makes it seem as though Basher Tarr is in a remote location when he pulls the trigger to turn out the Vegas Strip lights, the scene is actually filmed from on top of Bellagio’s self-park garage!
The Bodyguard: Fontainebleu Miami Beach
In The Bodyguard the Fontainebleu makes an appearance as the host of the charity benefit where Whitney Houston’s character Rachel sings ‘I Have Nothing’. However, the luxury grounds of the hotel have appeared in more than one Hollywood blockbuster. In the third James Bond film, Goldfinger, the Fontainebleu is where Sean Connery’s 007 checks in before thwarting the movie’s villain during a game of poolside Gin Rummy, and in Al Pacino’s Scarface, the beach hotel is where Montana and Manny Ray relax and eye up ladies.
Some Like It Hot: Hotel del Coronado, San Diego
Despite being set in a Florida resort, Some Like It Hot was actually filmed in San Diego at the Hotel del Coronado. Filmed in the late 1950s but set in 1929, the hotel provided an era-appropriate backdrop to the romantic mishaps of the three characters played by Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. Largely neglected during the Depression and first World War, the hotel preserved its ornate 1888 façade, so much so that one critic thought that the hotel was on an over-the-top fake backdrop, calling out the original decorative Queen Anne architecture as “an uproariously improbable set!”.
Pretty Woman: The Beverly Wilshire, California
In the 1990 blockbuster Pretty Woman, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel is where Edward Lewis (played by Richard Gere) puts up his escort Vivian Ward (played by Julia Roberts). Vivian endears herself to the staff of the hotel, resulting in the hotel manager teaching her about place settings, and the hotel is conveniently located next to the designers shops in Rodeo Drive. The hotel celebrated the 25th anniversary of the film by offering Pretty Women packages that ranged from $15,000 to $100,000 and included homages to the film including a night in the presidential suite, a personal shopper on Rodeo Drive with $3,000 shopping money, couples massages, a diamond pedicure and a romantic dinner on the Veranda Suite Terrace.
Maid in Manhattan: Roosevelt Hotel, New York
Jennifer Lopez plays a hardworking maid at the fictional Beresford Hotel in the 2002 romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan. The exterior of the Beresfod was actually the Waldorf-Astoria but the majority of the filming took place within the Roosevelt Hotel. The Roosevelt has also ben featured in a number of other Hollywood films including The Taking of Pelham 123, The French Connection and Men in Black 3.
