Hollywood on the Mon!
Lights, Camera, Action… in Southwestern Pennsylvania? It’s true – Hollywood has been bringing plenty of big-budget productions to the Pittsburgh area and independent filmmakers are also using Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania as part of their productions. Recently, Waynesburg has been the site for two film productions, Night Zero and A Jury of His Peers, from Tredd Productions. These movies are part of the growing trend of filming in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Filming in southwestern Pennsylvania isn’t a new thing there have been more than a handful of movies and television shows filmed around the area in the past 40 years, but Pennsylvania, especially Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas, is rising in the ranks as a great place to film, ranking 5th in a study by FilmLA.
It’s not a surprise that the area has what film scouts are looking for. Within the region there is a range of scenery: beautiful landscapes, rolling farms, big city lights, and industry such as steel works and coal mines. Many films bank on that industrial background especially – movies like Out of the Furnace (2013), My Bloody Valentine (2009) and The Deer Hunter (1978) all center on either mining or steelworks. There’s also the state film tax credit, considered one of the best in the country. This 25% tax credit goes to films that spend at least 60% of their total production budget in the state.
Before southwestern Pennsylvania began to this drastic increase in film traffic, it had already played a part in other major film productions. These productions have been scattered across Greene, Fayette, and Washington counties.
One of the first movies filmed entirely in the area, specifically Brownsville, PA, was Maria’s Lovers (1984), starring Natassja Kinski, John Savage, Robert Mitchum and Keith Carradine. The plot follows Savage’s character Ivan as he returns home from war and his relationship with Kinski’s Maria. For the film, Brownsville was transformed into a post-WWII small town.
While watching the movie, viewers will see the now-absent Fredericktown Ferry, High Point restaurant in Coal Center, the Orthodox Church in West Brownsville, and many other familiar locations. Maria’s and Ivan’s homes were both in Brownsville – in fact, one of the homes used during filming was for sale a few years back. Many of the resident’s of Brownsville have fond memories of the time that they were ‘in the movies’ – several worked as extras and others have collections of movie memorabilia related to the film, such as Matthew Brockman’s mother. He tells us that she remembers being “totally star-struck and hanging around the sets everyday during filming. I can remember her and many of the ladies in West Brownsville hanging around the trailer of Robert Mitchum just to get his autograph and a kiss.”
Filmed not too long after Maria’s Lovers, the TV movie Act of Vengeance (1986), starring Charles Bronson and Ellen Bursytn, not only had locally filmed scenes, but also focused on a local story – the murders of Joseph Yablonski and his family in their family home near Clarksville. Yablonski had opposed corruption in the UMWA and was murdered on the orders W.A. Boyle, the UMWA president. The story was turned into a novel called Act of Vengeance, by Trevor Armbrister and this novel was used to create the film. The Nemacolin Mine in Nemacolin, PA was used in the filming of the coal mine scene and the Nemacolin VFD was paid for the use of their fire trucks. Patty Blumish remembers, “The movie company covered over the name on the sides of one of the trucks they used in filming. When they removed the cover, it peeled away some of the original Nemacolin VFD lettering and they had to have it custom lettered all over again. My uncle Steve Repko was an extra in the movie. He was such a sweet man, quick to smile. Died several years ago, but always laughed about being a ‘movie star’ at his ‘old age’. A lot of men in town were extras.”
Going into the 90s, there weren’t a lot big studios filming locally and most movies made in southwestern Pennsylvania stayed pretty close to Pittsburgh and only ventured south for brief scenes. Things started to pick up once the 21st century rolled around.
Carmichaels, PA and its annual King Coal celebration became the focus of a 2005 documentary The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania. Sarah Rush, an actress and reigning coal queen of 1972, along with Patricia Heaton and David Hunt, worked on the documentary. Their focus was the 50th anniversary of the week long celebration, its pageant and contestants, as well as the community as a whole. Jess Levo was one of the contestants that year and looks back on the experience with fondness. “As a 16-year-old, the filming was a blast. I felt like a celebrity. This was before the reality show “boom” so we had no idea what to expect. The entire crew was so sweet. Everyone from Sarah Rush, to Patricia Heaton and her husband David were incredibly kind.” One of the memories that stick in her thoughts is meeting Patricia at the film’s premiere when she looked at Jess’s dad and said, “I feel like I know you!” Jess finished with, “My dad is a coal miner so I was, and still am, so proud to have represented my school, my town and my family in the Coal Queen pageant.”
Another film that capitalized on Greene County’s coal mining backdrop was The Road (2009), starring Viggo Mortensen. The Road filmed various scenes in Greene and Fayette County. Most noticeable of the local scenes are the use of the Nemacolin Mine slate dump in Nemacolin as post-apocalyptic America and Rubles Run Bridge, part of the Mon-Fayette Freeway in Fayette County, for a wrecked 18-wheeler scene where the characters take refuge. During the Nemacolin filming, a base camp was set up on the lot where the old shirt factory used to be on Nemacolin Road. The production even utilized the Nemacolin VFD to handle traffic control through the area.
Brownsville has been the site of several films after Maria’s Lovers. The pilot for the CBS medical drama Three Rivers was filmed at the former Brownsville Tri-County Hospital in 2009. Abduction (2011) starring Taylor Lautner, spent most of its time filming scenes in the Pittsburgh area, but ventured south to film a few scenes in Brownsville – most noticeably a shoot-out scene in the famous Fiddle’s Restaurant. Riddle (2013) starring Val Kilmer, also filmed the majority of its scenes in and around Brownsville – the Brownsville Public Library was even converted into a sheriff’s office – as well as the Layton Bridge and Tunnel in Layton, PA. Other scenes were filmed at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington. Riddle was entirely a local production; its crew and directors were Pittsburgh natives. 2020's I Am Not Okay With This was also recently filmed in Brownsville.
And those are just some of the bigger productions that have filmed in the area. Independent film production groups are filming features in the area without major studio backing, like Craig Quits His Day Job, filmed in Canonsburg. These films are usually created and worked on by local crews with local actors, and are often put on the festival circuit and rarely play in major theaters. These local productions may see their films premiere in the few smaller, independent theaters that still operate in the area, such as the Hollywood Theater in Dormont.
Southwestern Pennsylvania can continue to look forward to being the scene of new films and TV shows as more people see the beauty and range that the area has to offer with each movie filmed here. If you are interested in learning more about the film industry in Pittsburgh – they always need extras! - visit the Pittsburgh Film Office’s website at pghfilm.org.
There have been so many films shot in the Southwestern Pennsylvania area that it would be impossible to list them all. Here’s a sampling of Southwestern Pennsylvania area films and TV shows that have ventured into our neighborhoods.
Some additional locally filmed movies and television shows:
Night of the Living Dead (1990) Washington, PA – Farmhouse.
Silence of the Lambs (1991) Layton, PA – Buffalo Bill’s house exterior.
Bob Roberts (1992) Uniontown – State Theater.
The Dark Half (1993) Washington, PA - Washington County Courthouse and Washington & Jefferson College.
Diabolique (1996) Uniontown.
The Mothman Prophecies (2002) Bentleyville, PA.
Foxcatcher (2014) California, PA - Convocation Center; Washington, PA - Washington High School.
Justified (2010) Layton, PA – Layton Bridge & Tunnel, Washington, PA – Exterior Courthouse
Outsiders (2016) Dunbar, PA - Joseph A. Hardy Connellsville Airport and other areas.
Mindhunter (2017) Washington, PA - Washington & Jefferson College.
Published in February 2018 GreeneScene Magazine, with updates in 2020.
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