Cinematic Road Trip: Pennsylvania

John Ur gets pumped up for Pennsylvania in this stop along the Cinematic Road Trip.

Growing up, I visited relatives out West. My parents would load up the car with our suitcases and a cooler for drinks and food. My sister and I would reluctantly get in the car. Stay on your side! Stop touching me! I’m not touching you! Mom, she’s on my side! Keep it up and I’ll pull this car over and wallop the both of you!

I tried to hide myself in a Nintendo Gameboy, playing Tetris until my thumbs were sore. Are we there yet, Ma? We’re almost out of New Jersey. (It was about two hours into the trip. I was restless.) And then we crossed into Pennsylvania—the Wild, Wild West. Let’s not even talk about western Pennsylvania. As far as I was concerned, that was as far from N.J. as California.

My memories from that era are vague. I remember the biblical town names of eastern P.A.—Bethlehem, Nazareth—and I remember signs for Lancaster County, the heart of Dutch Country. It always seemed a little odd to me that there would be signs advertising a place in the state where people wore hats and rode horses. Why was this a tourist spot?

If you’re curious about the Amish people of Lancaster County, you might want to check out the 1985 film, Witness. The movie stars Harrison Ford as Philadelphia cop John Book, caught up trying to solve the murder of another police officer. The only witness to the murder is a young Amish boy. In an effort to protect the boy, his mother, and eventually himself, Book takes up shelter in the Amish community—where there are no phones, no electricity, and no easy way to track him down.

While Book is hiding out, he picks up the simple way of life that the Amish lead—working their farms with the help of horses, milking cows by hand, building birdhouses. The Amish even allow him to participate in an old-fashioned barn-raising. The climactic scene takes place largely inside of a corn and grain silo on the Lapp family farm. What may seem primitive to me and you is to them modern and relevant—with days starting before dawn and working the fields until after night falls.

It wasn’t until almost 10 or 15 years later that I was able to drive through the state from east to west and reach the Rust Belt City of Pittsburgh. There are no shortage of films shot in the city of yellow bridges, but my recommendation is The Silence of the Lambs. I don’t remember many cityscape shots in the movie, but many scenes set in Baltimore were shot in and around Pittsburgh.

But if we’re going to talk the quintessential Pennsylvania movie—and we are—we have to talk Rocky. Sylvester Stallone plays the title character in the movie he wrote that made him a household name. The story is set in Philadelphia, where Rocky is trying to make a name for himself as a boxer. He fights for chump change and makes some extra money as a “collector” for a loan shark. (Sounds like some people I know in Jersey.)

Actually the story is based on the true story of former Bayonne, New Jersey, boxer Chuck Wepner, who was able to last 15 rounds with Mohammed Ali. The fight inspired Stallone to write the now-famous script.  The setting for the film played well to Rocky’s humble upbringing—a high school dropout—walking the backstreets with dark alleys; hanging out at the meat shop with his buddy, Paulie; roughing guys up down at the docks when they owe money to his boss.

But the movie, Rocky, is famous not for the simple life that Rocky leads, but the great obstacle he tries to overcome: fighting the heavyweight champion of the world, Apollo Creed. Before he can step into the ring with Creed, where the fight was actually shot in Los Angeles, Rocky needs to train. Cue one of the most famous movie sequences of all-time—parodied and duplicated in cartoons, sitcoms, and other movies a million times over… So much so that I didn’t even realize that I had never seen the whole movie before. I just knew the story and the training sequence, and somehow I felt like I had seen the movie.

Rocky follows much the same kind of training sequence that I do daily: running next to railroad tracks with bricks in his hands, then through the market—where a vendor tosses him an orange. He jogs down a riverside park (Fairmount Park), and then he’s back in the gym. A quick stop in the slaughterhouse to punch some dead cow carcasses, and then more jogging back out on the port. And up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—probably No. 1 in a list of most famous movie locations in the U.S. I often jump up and down with my arms raised knowing that I am ready to face the champion.

Actually, I’d rather just eat some cheesesteaks. But if you want to check out Philadelphia, you might want to get on the Rocky bandwagon. Rocky I, II, III, V, and VI (aka Rocky Balboa) were shot there. (IV was shot in Wyoming, which doubled for Russia). And if you’re going to Pennsylvania, refrain from shouting “Yo Adrian.” I’m tired of that. I’m sure the natives are too.   

Read More: Check out the complete list of films shot in Pennsylvania, and browse the Cinematic Road Trip archives here.

Photo:  Steps of Philadelphia Museum of Art, by iiraa, via Intelligent Travel's Flickr pool

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Comments

[Nancy]

Ahhhh, I well remember those drives and, guess what, if you don't behave, I'll still wallop you upside your head! :)

[Russia Travel Club]

for more Rocky scenery you should visit Russia:)

[John Ur]

Thank you Russia Travel Club. But Rocky never shot in Russia. In Rocky IV, when Rocky takes on Ivan Drago, all of Rocky's training scenes that are supposed to be Russia are actually Wyoming or British Columbia.

See Rocky IV locations: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089927/locations

PS. Everyone should visit Russia anyway.