Pixwords scenes altar movie#
So Hoffman tapped at the window, arms up - leading some movie critics to laud the symbolism of his Christ-like pose.Īnother happy accident came about during the bus ride sequence, in which Ben and Elaine board, laughing, as passengers stare at him in his sweatshirt and her in her wedding gown.Īn array of emotions pass over their faces in the wordless sequence: smiles alternating with terror and blankness as the import of what they’ve done sinks in. “Either do that,” Nichols told him, “or we’ll have to redo everything at another church.” Nichols asked Hoffman if he could hit the window with his palms rather than his fists. The window was shaking visibly and as it was a gift from a parishioner, it was considered irreplaceable. “And it’s the reverend! And he’s screaming, ‘Stop! Stop! Everybody out. “In the middle of a take, I hear screaming,” Hoffman recalled in a 2015 interview on the DVD version. The famous moment in which Hoffman bangs on the balcony glass to attract the bride’s attention almost got the production thrown out by the pastor, Donald Woods. Bancroft is said to have fainted during the chaos of the fight. There were so many takes, Hoffman almost passed out at one point, requiring either ice or oxygen, depending on who’s telling the story. If Braddock had been able to get into the church through the front doors, he would have run up the aisle, after all, not raced to the balcony. The stairway was a prop, built by the crew to seem to provide exterior access to the balcony. Next Braddock is seen running south on D Street along a sidewalk before crossing the lawn toward the church. He grew up in town and trained for the Bonita High cross-country team by running on Emerald and other local streets. He recognizes the home of the Mueller family and Bowdoin as a cross-street. Where the car runs out of gas has been a minor local mystery - is it around Santa Barbara or here? - but the two-lane road lined with orange groves was Emerald Avenue in La Verne, between Foothill Boulevard and Base Line Road, according to Mayor Don Kendrick. The gas station scene was filmed in Calabassas, according to IMDB. A melee ensues in which Ben swings a cross like a broadsword to keep people at bay, then jams the cross in the door handles to lock everyone inside as he and Elaine run out and flag down a passing bus. Wedding guests turn and Elaine, after some hesitation, screams “Ben!” and runs out. Seeing Elaine and her mother’s choice of groom kissing, he pounds at the glass and cries “Elaine!” He runs up to the church, finds the front door locked and goes around to the side, racing up an exterior staircase to the glassed-in balcony.
Pixwords scenes altar full#
Within blocks, his car runs out of gas and he takes off on foot at full gallop. Here’s how the movie’s final minutes unfold.īraddock stops his car at a gas station in Santa Barbara, makes a call to learn where the wedding is taking place, hears that it’s at “First Presbyterian Church on Allen Street” and drives off. “Most famous name in the cast was Anne Bancroft,” the Leader noted of the actress who played Mrs. The next issue, the Leader recounted the plot of the scene and said 100 technicians had been on hand. The weekly La Verne Leader on June 7 ran a photo from that site with a caption that began: “An unnamed movie company is making an unidentified movie about an unnamed situation at the First Methodist Church in La Verne.” Obviously the hometown newspaper’s sourcing left a lot to be desired. Permission was granted for a four-day shoot, with the fee reportedly $1,500 per day.įilming took place in early June of 1967 and was fairly hush-hush, with even church members told they could only watch from across the street.
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Producer Lawrence Turman tried again, arguing that the script, while sexually provocative, “deals with the very issues the church itself should be dealing with in today’s world.” (Nice of him to be so concerned about the future of the Methodist church.) And he and Elaine run off even though he gets to the wedding too late to stop it. It’s unknown how much they knew, but Braddock has an affair with an older woman before falling in love with her daughter. All the glass, he thought, would symbolize Braddock’s feeling of being cut off from everyone.Įlders at First Methodist Church, as the congregation, La Verne’s oldest, was then known, were resistant due to the movie’s subject matter. Production designer Richard Sylbert saw a photo of the modernist church in an architecture book and Nichols, a New Yorker, decided the church had the Southern California style he wanted. With its stark white exterior and massive windows, including floor to ceiling glass behind the altar providing a view of an aged camphor tree, the church has a classic midcentury look. The 1961 church, designed by the Pasadena firm of Ladd and Kelsey, was still fairly new when “The Graduate” came calling.