Wall Street | 1987
Filmed in New York, this is the he defining film of the 80s, with ambitious Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) coming a cropper when he chooses reptilian Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) as a yuppie role model.
Both ‘Jackson Steinem’, the office in which broker Fox dreams of being on the other end of the phone, and Gordon Gekko’s own company were filmed in the offices at 222 Broadway, which now house Merrill Lynch, downtown Manhattan.
As Fox ‘bags the elephant’, insinuating himself into Gekko’s exclusive circle, he’s invited to sample steak tartare at exclusive hangout, The 21 Club, 21 West 52nd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues (seen also in All About Eve, Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery and The Sweet Smell of Success).
Rock Hudson takes Lauren Bacall to the 21 (which was recreated in the studio) for “the best steak sandwich in the world” in Douglas Sirk’s 1956 melodrama Written On The Wind.
Given the task of tailing Gekko’s rival, Fox follows Sir Larry Wildman (Terence Stamp) to the old Standard Oil Building, 26 Broadway at Beaver Street, and on to the exclusive Le Cirque Restaurant in the old Mayfair Regent Hotel. The hotel, outside which Fox waits, has since been redeveloped, by Donald Trump as a condominium, at 610 Park Avenue at the southwest corner of 65th Street on the prestigious East Side.
Le Cirque itself moved to the New York Palace Hotel, 451 Madison Avenue, in 1997, and the restaurant is now Daniel, 60 East 65th Street.
Gekko provides one of the iconic images of the decade, delivering his ‘Greed is good’ speech at the ‘Teldar Stockholders Meeting’ in the Grand Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel, 45 East 45th Street at Madison Avenue, midtown. The Roosevelt is a regular screen star, having appeared in Boiler Room, The French Connection, Presumed Innocent, Maid in Manhattan, Quiz Show, Malcolm X, and as the fictitious ‘Dolphin Hotel’ in 1408.
And, yes, that is the trading floor of the real New York Stock Exchange, 18 Broad Street at Wall Street, bustling with real traders. The grand building – the trading floor alone measures 109 by 140 feet – with its neoclassical frontage, opened in 1903. Stone was given 45 minutes to film his scenes, the Exchange is not generally open for visits or tours.
After being coerced into entrapping his former mentor, Fox meets up with Gekko in Central Park. The restaurant where it’s revealed that Fox has been wearing a wire is the Tavern on the Green, Central Park at West 67th Street – seen in Ghostbusters, as well two Woody Allen movies – Crimes and Misdemeanors and Oedipus Wrecks, his section of New York Stories
Fox is finally dropped off by his dad to face the music at the New York Supreme Court Building, 60 Centre Street.
