IMDB lists the Ahwanee Hotel in Yosemite as a location. I have searched diligently for anything resembling the lobby scenes every time I visit the grand old place, and nothing seems to match up. The positions of the elevators is too great a structural feature to have undergone a position change in the intervening years. Anybody know anything about this?
shareI wondered the same thing--it looks like the same wood and rock and the front door is in the correct place, but I don't remember phone booths and there was a gift shop there to the left of the entrance as I recall?
I spent my wedding night/honeymoon there too--had always dreamt of it--now I wonder if I got the idea from this movie. LOL I figured they updated the lobby area sometime after 1940 but before the 80s when I started going there....?
The film never showed any scenes through the magnificent windows toward the stunning views. So that made me wonder if they ended up recreating the hotel back at the studio? I don't have it on DVD so I can't check if the movie credits the hotel, or just IMDB? But if they had a suite worthy of a honeymoon, it would have had windows that looked across the lawn and trees to the rock face on the other side of the Valley--too beautiful not to show--if they could. And across the lobby, where the movie never showed, are more windows...with Yosemite outside. The film looked like there was the lobby counter and a wall, but actually that's where Yosemite is! Finally, they never showed the original dining room (that I am sure of because they tell you!) with the high ceilings and beautiful windows and views. Somehow they missed it all.
I wondered if all the windows screwed up the film's lighting? If they faced the windows and the trees and rock faces, perhaps they could not get enough light for the actors' faces? (It also takes a lot of power to make old Hollywood lights shine and Yosemite did not have the best electricity in 1940, nor did it have great roads to bring trucks full of equipment...and there is no "Yosemite Airport!" (The idea of landing airplanes there is kind of funny.) Maybe it was too difficult to film--the director, crew, cameras literally have their backs to the beauty. Maybe they could not get a decent shot of the windows and raftered ceilings, so they shot in the lobby there and went back to the studio? And perhaps the lobby was refurbished at some time between then and more present times?