Misery | 1990

For Rob Reiner's film of the Stephen King story, the snowbound landscapes are Western Nevada.

Let's get the disappointment out of the way first. The out-of-the-way home where Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) holds writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) captive was nothing more than a shell built for the film near the little town of Clearcreek, about five miles south of Carson City.

And the house's interiors were filmed in what was then the Hollywood Center Studio, and is now Sunset Las Palmas Studios, 1040 North Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood.

But the town of 'Silver Creek' is, at least partly, real, and a few more miles further south from Clearcreek on Jacks Valley Road. This is Genoa, the oldest permanent settlement in Nevada. However, the general store and the police station were built for the film on vacant lots (and taken down after filming) on the main street, which is Jacks Valley Road. You can see the real Genoa Bar and Saloon ("Nevada's Oldest Thirst Parlor") as Annie drives into town.

Just out of frame is the Genoa Courthouse Museum, Genoa's other claim to cinematic fame. This was used as the bank robbed in Don Siegel's excellent 1973 thriller Charley Varrick, with Walter Matthau in a rare straight role.

This stretch of highway from which Sheldon's car skids is Donner Pass Road, Placer County, across the border in California. It's an old mountain route over the Sierra Nevada near Truckee and the famous story of the gruesome fate of the Donner Party should be a reminder of the weather conditions in winter here. Yes, even nowadays the road may be closed in winter.

Away from snowy Nevada, the New York office of Paul's agent, Marcia Sindall (Lauren Bacall) is supposed to be the Seagram Building on Park Avenue, judging by the view of the Park Avenue Plaza building from the window. Since all we see is the interior, nothing else apart from establishing shots was filmed in New York, and Lauren Bacall's only other scene was filmed in Los Angeles, I suspect the scene was filmed elsewhere – probably on a soundstage.

Bacall's other scene is in the 'New York' restaurant, where Paul is haunted by images of Annie as he talks to his agent at the end of the film, certainly is not the Big Apple. And it's not a restaurant.

This is the South Galleria of the familiar Millennium Biltmore Hotel, 506 South Grand Avenue, overlooking Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles. The South Galleria was more recently seen on screen as a 'San Francisco' hotel in 2023's Oppenheimer.

For more of the Biltmore's extensive filmography, see Beverly Hills Cop or Ghostbusters.

Sheldon enters by the Millennium Biltmore's modest rear entrance on South Grand Avenue, which is also the site of hitman John Cusack's botched job at the beginning of 1997's Grosse Pointe Blank.

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