Location, location, location – that’s pretty much what movie makers seek when they’re preparing to shoot. Alberta is a character actor in the movie business, able to play almost any location in the world, given that choices for shoots in the province include cities, small towns, mountains, prairies and foothills.

If you’ve ever wondered why a scene in a certain movie that’s supposed to be about some exotic place you’ve never visited causes you to say, “Hey, I think I’ve been there…” Well, it’s not déjà vu. It may be a location in Alberta posing as someplace else, and it could be somewhere that you can visit.

Top feature films have been shot in Alberta, but the province is also a prime location for many made-for-TV movies. While we focus on Calgary and Edmonton in this article, with a nod to some of the big movies shot in and around the Rockies and elsewhere in the province, it’s just a taste of the more than 100 feature films that show Alberta on film.

Calgary Doubles

Who would have thought that Bowness Park in Calgary could double as Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch? Well, movie makers did, when they shot the made-for-TV movie Man in the Mirror a few years ago.

Does the old St. Louis Hotel strike you as a place that Superman would hang out, let alone smash some windows in the bar before storming out? Parts of the first few Superman movies were shot in Calgary and yes, during Superman III, Superman was in the hotel, where a set was arranged for his temper tantrum.

The Ron Clark Story, a made-for-TV movie (nominated for a Golden Globe) about a teacher who struggles to help tough students in New York, stars Matthew Perry (from the blockbuster hit TV show 'Friends') along with Calgary locations such as Queen Elizabeth High School. Like the other actors, it even got makeup.

Ben Owens, a location manager who works in the film industry in Calgary, says: “In the back, we covered the exterior in graffiti. We hired a local company that works on major landmarks to apply the coating to the exterior and then it was pressure washed off.”

If you’ve ever had a meal at Dairy Lane Milk Bar restaurant at 319 19th Ave. N.W., you were in the midst of a Nora Roberts book. In the recently shot made-for-TV movie, Blue Smoke, Calgary doubles for Baltimore and the restaurant doubles as a family pizza parlor. The movie, a romance thriller, is expected to be released this year.

“It looked so good that we had people on the street trying to get into it for pizza, not knowing it was a movie set,” says Ben.

Brokeback Mountain (which fetched an Oscar for director Ang Lee) had parts of Alberta double for Wyoming, and while it featured Kananaskis Country, Fort Macleod and other areas, if you liked the saloon scene, you can revisit it at Ranchman’s (Canada’s Greatest Honky Tonk!) in Calgary.

Another made for TV movie entitled Santa Baby, which has been broadcast on A Channel, shows the Ranche Restaurant on Bow Bottom Trail S.E., which was shown as the exterior to Santa’s workshop at the North Pole and augmented with computer generated imaging with photos of Upper Kananaskis Lake, says Ben.

When Hollywood stars visit Calgary, favoured hotels include the Fairmont Palliser, the Sheraton, the Hyatt and the Delta Bow Valley, and restaurants include Murrieta’s, Catch, Divino, Bonterra and Joey Tomatoe’s at Eau Claire.

Edmonton Highlights

When Brad Pitt was shooting The Assassination of Jesse James  in Alberta, Heritage Park in Calgary was one of the locations, and when the shoot moved up to Edmonton, Fort Edmonton Park and the steam engine train there featured prominently.

Location manager Eric Rebalkin, who worked on the Jesse James movie and many others, says the steam train was fixed up in the movie so that it would appear as an authentic period piece, and the work they did remains for visitors to the park.

“They used special paint from Europe to redo the exterior and fixed up some interior sections,” he says. “We also shot just outside the Hotel Selkirk and guests staying there got a great extra, because while security prevented anyone else from getting in, they could watch the shoot.”

In a film starring Jessica Alba, entitled Good Luck Chuck, which shot in Edmonton, watch for penguins from West Edmonton Mall. The penguins were moved a short distance to a big aquarium set nearby in the city, says Eric.

The big mini-series Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which picked up numerous awards at the 2007 Emmy Awards, shows the inside of the Legislature building in Edmonton, parts of which doubled as a Washington men’s club lounge and aspects of the capital building in Washington, says Eric.

Other Locations

There are too many great movies and other locations to fit all into this article, but here are some more notable movies that have been shot in Alberta:

- The Oscar-winning Unforgiven, starring and directed by Clint Eastwood, shot in and around Longview

- Legends of the Fall, starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, shot in locations including the Bragg Creek area

- Parts of the X-Men movies were shot in the Spray Lakes area near Canmore

- RV, the blockbuster summer comedy starring Robin Williams, was shot in the Crowsnest Pass area, parts of the Canadian Badlands and Milk River

- Otto Preminger’s River of No Return, starring Marilyn Monroe, shot in the Canadian Rockies, Jasper and Banff

- Steven Spielberg’s $50-million, award-winning TV miniseries Into the West was shot throughout Alberta