This was the first Hollywood movie filmed in Boston
And it foreshadows future TV police procedurals such as CSI.
shareThere was some other movie from the 50's filmed there that I've seen on TCM. I think it was in the spy/espionage genre.
shareIt was probably "Walk East on Beacon" (1952), about FBI efforts to break up a communist sleeper cell:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045309/reference
Here's a listing of films shot in New England, listed by state:
http://hollywoodeastconnection.com/movies-filmed-in-new-england#massac husetts
That's it. Thanks. I lived on a Beacon St. when I was living in Boston--It was actually in Somerville.
shareI lived in Boston for 28 years. Beacon Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston and several of its western suburbs. The Beacon Street that runs through Boston, Brookline, Brighton, and Newton is not to be confused with the Beacon Street in nearby Somerville, or others elsewhere.
shareBut I bet it still is.:)
shareNope:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beacon_Street
I kinda meant that rhetorically/facetiously, but thanks for the link. Did you write the article?
shareI contributed portions because I have a lot of expertise re: Boston and its environs, but others wrote most of it.
shareI lived there in 1981-1983, so well after the urban renewal(?) blitzkrieg that "blessed" the city with the Government Center project that featured that concrete monstrosity of a City Hall as it's "jewel in the crown." I'm not sure of your age but did you experience any of the pre-Government Center Boston (Scollay Square, etc.) and what did you think of the transformed urban landscape that came with the project?
shareI lived there from Feb. 1983 to Nov. 2011, so I was probably arriving just as you were leaving. Yes, the City Hall monstrosity is an example of Brutalist architecture. No kidding, that's actually an architectural term:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
The city, in its questionable 'wisdom,' replaced the Victorian buildings of Scollay Square with this eyesore. More recently, of course, there was the Big Dig, officially called the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (with all its ensuing graft and incompetence, leading to a nearly 200% cost overrun, one commuter death, and some criminal arrests); but at least that has eased traffic in the downtown area somewhat and made it possible to get to Logan Airport directly on an extended I-90.
Yeah--I didn't want to mention the Brutalism relate because that seems-- despite the thinly veiled disparagement inherent in the term--to somehow legitimize the structure in the context of architectural design. Actually I didn't have quite as much enmity for the building until I found out what it replaced. When I first heard the colorful designation "Scollay Square" in reference to what had been laid waste for the project I had no idea that the extent of the urban landscape erased went far beyond what we normally associate with the amount of land taken up by a "square."
Ah well--of course, no city in the country escaped the ravaging "benefits" of urban renewal--including my hometown of Rochester NY where just one "improvement" was the leveling of colorful Front St. and other riverside thoroughfares for a downtown "park" which is gloriously devoid of anything that could lead to urban messiness, and gloriously devoid of...people .
Too bad about Rochester. I lived in the outlying areas from 1977 to 1979 when I was teaching at RIT; then finally moved to NYC (Manhattan) to work in a large advertising agency on Madison Ave.
In upstate NY I first lived atop Bristol Mountain (Bristol Hills was the postal address) not far from the ski resort, just outside Canandaigua. Then I moved to Palmyra for a year before moving to NYC. It was a quaint little town that had some beautiful Federalist Era homes as well as the distinction of having large, beautiful churches on all four corners of the main intersection in town. I hope they haven't messed up that place. It was really pretty.
When in college in the early '70s I recall reading Jane Jacobs's classic book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," about how well-intentioned urban renewal projects destroyed whole neighborhoods and created long-lasting sociological havoc. I wonder if they've learned anything since.