696 N Via Monte Vista, Palm Springs, California 92262, United States
Palm Springs is famous for filming and PHOTOGRAPHY
Hollywood History in Palm Springs
Palm Springs, creatively dubbed “Hollywood’s Back Lot,” is only two hours from Los Angeles and hosts several film festivals every year.
With its unique architecture and beautiful landscape, Palm Springs, CA, boasts spectacular opportunities for filming and photoshoots. Palm Springs Film Location is the best location for photographers and film crews seeking a Spanish estate with Mediterranean grounds in the Palm Springs area.
Palm Springs Celebrity Playground Since the 1920s, Palm Springs has been Hollywood’s desert playground for celebrities to relax and escape from the hastiness and challenges of the entertainment industry. Hollywood studios' legendary “Two-Hour Rule” put Palm Springs as the perfect getaway. Actors under contract had to be available within two hours from the studio if last-minute filming and photo shoots had to take place. Several celebrities stayed and purchased hideaway homes in Palm Springs, such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., George Hamilton, Bob Hope, Albert Einstein, Bing Crosby, Kirk Douglas, Cary Grant, and Jack Benny. Several ladies were frequent visitors, including Marilyn Monroe, Dinah Shore, Kitty Carlisle, Lily Tomlin, Elizabeth Taylor and Susan Sommers. A new generation of Hollywood A-listers has succumbed to the lure of the desert and the relaxing privacy it offers. Palm Springs is being rediscovered by today’s Hollywood stars, especially during the Palm Springs International Film Festival held annually in January. Founded by then-mayor Sonny Bono, the star-studded events attract celebrities such as Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Ron Howard, Halle Barry, Leonard DiCaprio, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Fanning and many more.
Palm Springs Has Always Been Film Friendly
Our panoramic vistas of the desert and mountains of Palm Springs can transport movie buffs to a sun-drenched oasis full of rich Hollywood history. The desert provides a vast canvas upon which early productions could paint a cinema scape of excess, decadence, and exoticism. Let’s slip back in time and go on location to see how Palm Springs has spun some of Hollywood’s most remarkable tales.
Movies Filmed in Palm Springs – The Early Days
It’s not easy to pinpoint the first known film shot in Palm Springs because location scouts were often stealthy and covert in their missions. Perhaps crews were filming action sequences for lost films such as The Lone Star Ranger (1919) or the biblical epic Salomé (1918). The desert provided a vast canvas upon which early productions could paint a cinema scape of excess, decadence, and exoticism.
- The Orphan – 1920 (stars William Farnum) – Palm Springs
- The Sheik – 1921 – Rudolph Valentino followed suit, falling in love with Palm Springs. Charged with bigamy for marrying his second wife in Palm Springs when his previous divorce was less than a year old, Rudy became embroiled in a scandal much louder than his silent film legacy. It seems quaint by today’s standards, but gossip was already a prolific byproduct of the film trade.
- Follow Thru – 1930 – El Mirador Hotel
- Under the Texas Moon – 1930 – Palm Canyon
- Captain Blood – 1935 – (stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland) – Palm Canyon
- Desert Gold – 1936 – (stars Buster Crabb) – desert scenes
- Under Two Flags – 1936 (stars Claudette Colbert) – Palm Canyon
- Lost Horizon – 1937 – Frank Capra proved this assertion with his Oscar-winning. The characters in this film discover Shangri-La in Tahquitz Canyon.
- Her Jungle Love – 1938 – (the first jungle film in Technicolor) presented a scantily clad “native” Dorothy Lamarr, who was stalked by shipwrecked outsider Ray Millan. Hollywood decorated the 15-mile-long Palm Canyon Drive with $330,000 worth of transported vines and foliage to create an authentic “tropical rain forest.”
- Sahara – 1943 – Humphrey Bogart got in on the Palm Springs action in this war epic in which the Coachella Valley doubles for the sands of Libya.
- A Night in Casablanca – 1946 (The Marx Brothers)
- The Damned Don’t Cry – 1950 – stars Joan Crawford
- Desert Rates – 1953 (stars Richard Burton)
- Palm Springs Weekend – 1963
- The Cool Ones – 1966 – Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
- The Wild Angels – 1966 – Tahquitz Canyon
- The Wrecking Crew – 1968 (stars Dean Martin) – Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
- Kotch – 1971 – Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
- Hanging by a Thread – 1979 – Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
- She’s Dressed to Kill (TV movie) – 1979 – Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
- American Gigolo – 1980
- Fraternity Vacation – 1985
- Amado Road Heaven – 1987 (documentary by Diane Keaton) – Palm Springs
- Less Than Zero – 1987 – Future Marvel superhero/villains James Spader and Robert Downey Jr. crash at the Hyatt on North Palm Canyon.
- Rain Man – 1988 – (stars Tom Cruise and Dustan Hoffman) Movies Filmed in Palm Springs 1990’s – 2018 Mulholland Falls – 1996 – 2201 E. Smokewood Ave.
- Bounce – 2000 – (stars Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow) – water park scenes in Palm Springs.
- Circuit – 2001 – Hunter’s Video Bar, 302 East Arenas Road, Palm Springs Marquis Resort, 140 South Calle Encelia
- Ocean’s Eleven – 2001
- The Scorpion King – 2002 – Anza-Borrego State Park Constantine – 2005 (stars Keanu Reeves)
- Mission Impossible III – 2006 – Tom Cruise was in the windmills for the high-flying action of a helicopter chase.
- Alpha Dog – 2006 (stars Gena Rowlands, Justin Timberlake)
- Phat Girlz – 2006 – in and around Palm Springs
- Into The Wild – 2007 – The cable car scene is the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway
- Eating Out: The Open Weekend – 2011 – Triangle Inn
- Defcon 2012 – 2010 – 123 North Palm Canyon Drive
- Behind the Candelabra – 2013 – Our Lady of Solitude Church and scenes at Casa de Monte Vista, 696 North Via Monte Vista A Star Is Born – 2018
Palm Springs Film Location is on the Estate of Casa de Monte Vista
To learn more about filming, photography and visiting the estate please call.