Did they really have places like that back then...do they exist now?
(I'm referring to the motel Petulia & Archie go to at the beginning of the movie).
I don't know if there were really motels like that, but I remember seeing this movie when it first came out (I was still a kid,) and just loving that whole motel scene. I thought it was so cool, remembered it for years, and was excited when Petulia finally came out on video, so I could see it once again...
shareI was wondering the same thing, but I'm leaning toward thinking it was the production designer coming up with something "ultra-modern"; especially the part where the key "lets you know" when you've reached your room. However, I grew up in San Francisco and Berkeley in the 70's and it kind of reminded me of those drive-through tellers at the bank (pre-atms) where the transactions involved these big, round, metal canisters and a huge metal drawer (I'm not sure how they worked - I just remember my mom using them when I was a kid - they always seemed like "magic" when I was little), so I thought MAYBE the self-check-in in this movie was like something that existed at an actual hotel, but I pretty much doubt it.
shareSince I left the original message about this motel, I've bought the DVD. There's a short film on it that was made at the time about the making of 'Petulia' and there's a section at the motel and it indeed looks like it was a real location they just used for the film. Obviously the idea didn't catch on though.
shareThey worked via pneumatic tubes. Air pressure sent the canister to the driver and back to the bank
shareThe hotel featured in the film is the Jack Tar Hotel on Van Ness Ave. It still exists, relatively intact, but is now the Cathedral Hill Hotel. The remote check-in DID exist (there's a photo of it on the San Francisco Public Library Photo Archives site). The hotel was also the location of the murder of Robert Duval's character in "The Conversation".
sharehttp://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAB-2112.jpg
Above is the link to the photo.
Thanks for the info rfrover. Apparently the hotel is about to be demolished.
I always thought it was a joke. (I first saw the film on TV around 1975 and have loved it ever since.) Are you sure this is not the Hilton? Norman Mailer writes about the new S.F. Hilton having a parking garage with rooms attached in his piece on the 1964 GOP convention, and there is a small sign that says Hilton on the wall in one of the scenes.
-----------------------------------------------
"Why do people always laugh in the wrong places?"
--Gen. Buck Turgidson, USAF
In which scene did you see 'Hilton?'
Maybe the room was Hilton and the entrance somewhere else. Come to think of it..the room doesn't look at all Hilton...might have been a set.
Yes, it was a the Hilton. I used to think it was a fantasy until I lived int he Bay Area for a generation during the Silicon Valley boom. I came across coverage of the Hilton check-in part of the S.F. hotel, and how modern and hip it was in the mid-'60s.
------------------
"Why do people always laugh in the wrong places?"
--Grace Slick
Yes, they really had some motels with self check-in in San Francisco, up 'till the '70s.
share