Texas Film Tour By North American Journeys May 13, 2009, 01:17 PST

Email this article  Printer friendly page

Explore Texas and learn about the films that have been made here.

Day 1: El Paso and Big Bend

Photo courtesy of Steve Bower

El Paso has served as a popular film site for numerous movies spanning many different film genres. In 1983's "Fandango" Kevin Costner and his buddies take a road trip across West Texas. Filming took place in El Paso, Monahans, Pecos, and Austin.

From El Paso, take a drive through awe-inspiring terrain to Fort Davis where 1998's "Dancer, Texas, Pop.81" was filmed. The movie showcases the isolated but beautiful Big Bend area, and provides a nice look into how small town West Texas lives.

"Giant," the epic drama of a West Texas cattle rancher and his family, provides excellent examples of sweeping desert-like vistas. The saga was filmed in Marfa, a tiny town in West Texas off U.S. 90; about a three-hour drive from El Paso. The Reata ranch house ruins stand on the Ryan Ranch, west of Marfa. Visitors should not venture onto the private property, but you can view the scaffold skeleton from U.S. 90. No fan's trip to Marfa would be complete without a visit to the Reata Restaurant in the neighboring town of Alpine. The 25-mile drive features stunning scenery and is a wonderful prelude to dinner.

Marathon served as the setting of "Paris, Texas." The 1984 film starring Harry Dean Stanton and Dean Stockwell features the still-standing Marathon Motel and RV Park. The motel, a jumble of log cabins, boasts breathtaking views of the West Texas desert to the Chisos Mountains.

---

Day 2: Del Rio and Bracketville

Del Rio, which bills itself as "The Best of the Border" lies southeast of Marathon on the Texas-Mexico border on U.S. 90. The town served as the movie location for two very different action films, "Sugarland Express" and "Twister." In the Steven Spielberg-directed "Sugarland Express," Del Rio's semi-arid terrain is put to good use. In "Twister," the area's good weather actually hampered production of the movie.

Featured action for the acclaimed television mini-series, "Lonesome Dove," took place around the Del Rio area. From Del Rio, take a short detour southeast to Brackettville. Brackettville is home of Alamo Village, Texas' most active and versatile movie set and one of the largest and most complete backlots in the world. Today, visitors can stroll through the Alamo compound and other buildings, including the John Wayne Museum.

---

Day 3: San Antonio City Tour

San Antonio sits on the edge of the Texas Hill Country and played host to director Billy Bob Thornton and star Matt Damon during the filming of "All the Pretty Horses" in 2000. San Antonio town scenes were shot downtown at the old Cadillac Bar.

San Antonio gets a more light-hearted look in 1985's "Pee Wee's Big Adventure." The first feature film directed by Tim Burton features a hilarious tour of the Alamo with Pee Wee Herman. Don't look for the basement of the Alamo in San Antonio - the real Alamo features no such thing. Many scenes for "Selena," the film about the hugely popular Tejano songstress were shot in San Antonio and nearby Corpus Christi, Selena's hometown. The film launched the career of Jennifer Lopez and featured a re-creation of Selena singing to 60,000 fans in the Houston Astrodome.

---

Day 4: Austin City Tour

About 85 miles north of San Antonio on IH 35, Austin has attracted the likes of Sandra Bullock, Kevin Costner, Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez who have set films in the heart of Central Texas' hill country. "Slacker," Linklater's 1991 indie favorite, features a series of character encounters shot around the state's capital.

Linklater returned two years later to shoot "Dazed and Confused," with soon-to-be star Matthew McConaughey. The 1993 film about Texas teens was filmed in Austin and Georgetown, about 20 miles north on IH 35. Look for Robert E. Lee High School, which is really Bedichek Middle School at 6800 Bill Hughes Road in Austin. The outdoor party was filmed in West Enfield Park.

"The Faculty," directed by indie-meister Robert Rodriguez in 1998, was filmed in Austin and Lockhart. The film's Herrington High is actually the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin. Rodriguez returned to Austin to film 2000's hit, "Spy Kids" and its sequel, "Spy Kids 2." The water chase scenes in the first movie were shot on picturesque Lake Travis.

Joel and Ethan Coen's dazzling post-noir debut film, "Blood Simple," was shot in the Austin area and nearby Round Rock. This scenic overlook of the Texas Hill Country, where Hedaya instructs M Emmet Walsh to kill John Getz, is Mount Bonnell Park. Mount Bonnell features a spectacular view of Lake Austin. The apartment building Frances McDormand moves into and the scene for the bloody climax is on Sixth Street, in Austin's popular entertainment district.

Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner teamed up for a chase movie filmed partly in Austin. In "A Perfect World," escaped convict Costner kidnaps a young boy on Columbus Street, off Bouldin Avenue in Austin. The fictitious town of Noodle is actually Martindale, and the shop robbed by Costner is on Main Street there. Filming also took place at the State Capitol.

Starring a cast of unknowns, the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" may be the most well known horror film ever. Tobe Hooper's screamer about a vanload of hippies traveling through the Texas countryside in the 70s was filmed in Round Rock, about 10 miles north of Austin. The grisly farmhouse has since been demolished.

Smaller Central Texas towns take center stage in a number of other films. In "Hope Floats," Sandra Bullock heads back home to Smithville. Bullock also returned to Austin and San Antonio to film "Miss Congeniality," released in 2000.

"Varsity Blues," a vehicle for WBS star James Van DerBeek was shot mostly in Georgetown, just north of Austin. "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," a domestic drama featuring Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio was set in fictitious Endora, Iowa, it was actually made in Manor, a small town just east of Austin. The town square of this film was shot in nearby Lockhart.

---

Photo courtesy of Bob Peters

Day 5: Houston City Tour

Texas' largest city was featured prominently in "Apollo 13," Ron Howard's gripping account of the ill fated 1970 moon flight, it used Hollywood movie magic to recreate the space launch. The gigantic Saturn V rockets, which carried the moon missions, have long been replaced by shuttles. The Saturn rockets can be viewed in Rocket Park at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, site of the real Mission Control. You can tour most of the Space Center, and if it is not closed for a launch, the actual Mission Control room itself.

The Johnson Space Center also served as a filming site for "Armageddon," the movie where Bruce Willis and crew have to stop a Texas-sized asteroid from hurtling toward Earth.

Houston seems the perfect spot to find yourself living next door to an astronaut (Jack Nicholson), as Shirley MacLaine does in "Terms of Endearment." In the Oscar-winning, but soapy tearjerker Nicholson lives in the smart Avalon district. The couple have a lunch date at Brennan's Restaurant, a downtown eatery well-known for its superb cuisine. More filming was completed in the River Oaks section of Houston.

1980's "Urban Cowboy" starring John Travolta and Debra Winger started the country and western music craze, not to mention the country's infatuation with mechanical bulls. Nightclub scenes were filmed at Gilley's. Don't go search for it; the bar has since burned down. "Reality Bites," was also filmed and set in Houston. Winona Ryder is comforted by Ethan Hawke near the cylinder water features of Tranquility Park.

---

Image courtesy of Bill Catlett

Day 6: Huntsville and Waxahachie

Waxahachie, just south of Dallas, has been the setting for a number of award-winning films. The town is noted for its abundance of elaborate Victorian-style homes with gingerbread trim. Several movies have featured its old buildings and homes, including "Trip to Bountiful." Adapted from a play by Waxahachie native Horton Foote, "Trip to Bountiful" earned an Oscar for Geraldine Page. Page, as an elderly, near-senile senior, escapes from her overbearing family in Houston to make one last trip to see the old family home. The small farming community of Bountiful actually is Waxahachie. The film was also shot in Venus, 15 miles to the west, and in the tiny community of Five Points. The Houston Bus terminal is the old Dallas Railroad Terminal.

Waxahachie also served as the movie location for 1981's "Tender Mercies," a film where Robert Duvall plays a country-western singer down on his luck. The film earned Duvall an Oscar.

Another Oscar-winning film, "Places in the Heart," was shot in 1983 in Waxahachie and the Dallas area. Director Robert Benton chose the setting for newly-widowed Sally Field's struggle to bring in a cotton crop and save her farm with the help of Danny Glover and John Malkovich.

---

Image courtesy of Sondra Borden

Day 7: Dallas and Fort Worth

In "Born on the Fourth of July," Tom Cruise played real life Vietnam vet Ron Kovic. The movie was made at Los Colinas Studios in Dallas, and the Miami scenes were filmed around the Dallas area. Ron's high school is Henderson Elementary School in Oak Cliff. Protest scenes were shot on the campus of Southern Methodist University. The Dallas Convention Center stands in for the Chicago Convention Center of the movie.

"Any Given Sunday," Oliver Stone's drama of American football was filmed mostly in Florida, but the film's climatic game was filmed in Texas Stadium in Irving. The stadium serves as the home to the NFL Dallas Cowboys.

The romanticized tale of the notorious gangster couple, Bonnie and Clyde, was filmed around Dallas at many of the sites where the actual events happened. The three banks which are robbed in the movie are the three real banks hit by the outlaws, left unchanged after closing during the Depression-era 30s. They're at Pilot Point, 50 miles north of Dallas on Route 377; Red Oak, just south of Dallas; and Venus, on Route 67 about 20 miles south-west of Dallas. Several smaller towns depicted stopping places for Bonnie and Clyde including Waxahachie (the location for "Places in the Heart" and "Tender Mercies") and Midlothian, both just south of Dallas; Rowlett, Maypearl, and Garland.

---

Image courtesy of Susan Mail

Day 8: Archer City and Lubbock

Archer City, just south of Wichita Falls not far from the Oklahoma border, claims fame as the site of two movies. The highly acclaimed "The Last Picture Show" was filmed in 1971, and its sequel, "Texasville," was filmed in 1989. "The Last Picture Show," directed by Peter Bogdanovich starring Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms and Cybill Shepherd, is an evocation of small town Texas life in the 1950s. The tiny town of Archer City was the perfect stand in for the movie's Anarene, Texas. The picture house is a burned out shell, but still stands crumbling away on Main Street. They returned almost two decades later to film the sequel, "Texasville."

In West Texas, scenes for "The Buddy Holly Story," the biopic of Lubbock's native son and early rock-n-roller, were shot in his hometown. The opening scene at the skating rink outside Lubbock is unforgettable. In town, the Buddy Holly Statue and Walk of Fame honor Lubbock and West Texas natives who have made significant contributions in the entertainment industry.

---

Keywords: Texas film tour, travel itinerary, El Paso, Texas, San Antonio, Del Rio, Austin,

© Copyright 2009 ClassBrain.com

Top of Page