At least twice in the movie there was a mention made about seeing two lights in the desert. It's been quite a while since I saw it, so my memory is fuzzy, but I thought the German woman said she saw them the reason she walked in the direction of the cafe. Maybe it was the Palance character who said what they were, but I didn't catch it. Can anyone explain this part? Thanks in advance.
Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam
Unfortunately with me it's a while, too, since I saw the film, but I remember that Percy Adlon explained this phenomenon on the audio commentary track of the DVD. When he and his wife travelled in the region, they saw this light several times and explored its origin (he said what it was, but I forgot), so it is indeed real, and they decided to use it for their film script.
Sorry I can't be more of a help right now without re-watching the film.
Regards, Rosabel
[deleted]
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate knowing what it was, because I didn't catch exactly what he said, so I thought it was some kind of natural phenomenon.
Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam
The two light points come from a 10-MW thermal solar power plant near Barstow, in the California desert, that was constructed in the mid seventies.
I worked for three years in a similar (although smaller) power plant in the Tabernas desert in AlmerÃa (Southern Spain).
Power is generated by heating a collector located atop a tower with the focused light from a field of parabolic mirros (some 1000 of them in Barstow). To have the beams focused in a safe point when the collector, was not operating(standby) they are pointed to two fixed spots well above ground. The strong light concentrated there makes the air shine.
This technique is safe for humans, but eventually a bird would fly inadvertently through the spot, and get roasted while flying....
Thanks for explaining that. I have lived in this general area for nearly 20 years and am vaguely familiar with the solar plants but not the specific phenomenon you have described.
I also just want to say that there are real towns, to this day, in the greater Southern California desert that are no bigger than the Bagdad of the film.
That is most excellent. Especially the thought of a bird being roasted in mid light. Perhaps it's morbid, but I would pay good money to see that happen.
-EdM.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
YES... they are sun dogs. Look here http://www.explorenorth.com/library/weekly/aa112699.htm
shareNo, in this case the other posters are correct. The lights are caused by the Solar Project. It's right near the film location.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project
The cafe in the film is now called the Bagdad Cafe, but was originally the Sidewinder Cafe. It's right on Route 66 in the Newberry Springs area...still there and very much as it was in the movie. So is the motel. The true Bagdad Cafe was long gone by the time the movie was filmed. It was a Route 66 institution located in Bagdad, California farther east. It's now less than a ghost town. Only concrete slabs remain.
Parsa
They are real, like is mentioned above.
I lived in the Barstow area, (stationed at the Marine Corps base in the 1980') and my friends lived out in Newberry Springs (they are life long residence), so we passed the solar plant almost daily, on High Way I-40.
A couple of quick notes. When the station was first 'turned on', the mirrors were pointed DIRECTLY at the tower.... and the tower was melted and cooked, and caught fire!
The mirrors are adjusted to shine NEAR the top of the tower, so all the thousands of reflector's redirected light intersecting with each other create the 'twin lights' on either side of the tower. And they exist from every angle viewed, 360 degrees.
Also, this particular solar station is mentioned and shown by Leonard Nimoy in one of the episodes of the "In Search Of..." series, running in the late seventies.
And yes, birds pile up around the foundation of that solar station. The lights attract bugs, bugs attract birds, and they all get cooked and land on the cement below. And no buffalo wing sauce in sight....