Eleven times in the last four years, I’ve reeled off a series of movie and TV moments referencing our very own New Haven.
And as far as 12th entries in a franchise go, I hope you’ll agree: This one’s way better than The Rise of Skywalker.
The Last Ship (2015), S2E3, 6:27
A blockbuster premise featuring an American battleship as humanity’s only hope in the face of an apocalyptic pandemic—along with a cast and crew who prove sheer commitment can balance a stretched cable TV budget—made this show an unlikely standout. Better yet, one of the two major in-world protagonists, a renowned scientist laboring over a possible cure, developed her laboratory chops right here in New Haven. “Dr. Scott! I have Dr. Hunter in Florida,” a character manning the comms informs her, before another character quietly exposits, for seemingly no one’s benefit but ours, “That’s her mentor from Yale.”
All About Eve (1950), 1:54:11
“To the theater world, New Haven, Connecticut, is a short stretch of sidewalk between the Shubert Theater and the Taft Hotel,” the film’s narrator says. The very next scene suggests the movie world at the time held an even narrower view of the city, with filmmakers choosing to project b-roll behind two of the film’s stars, Anne Baxter and George Sanders, instead of having them set actual foot in New Haven. Still, the footage behind the pair as they pretend to walk that sidewalk is very real, offering rare vintage pedestrian’s-eye glimpses of the drugstore, the army recruiting office and of course the hotel that once neighbored the Shubert.
Night and Day (1946), 1:40, 2:02:36
Described as “laughably fraudulent” by latter-day critic Ken Hanke—who was primarily lamenting the film’s inversion of its subject’s homosexuality, though the actor, Cary Grant, plays the scripted heterosexuality so coldly that it feels like a hint—the fictions in this ostensible biopic about the legendary songsmith Cole Porter begin, for us anyway, with the opening title card. “Yale—1914,” it reads, but for viewers who know the peculiar architectural and natural qualities of Yale and New Haven, the film’s SoCal shooting locations just aren’t going to match, no matter how many leaves of ivy the set dressers paste to the walls.
That opening attempt to conjure New England out west, which lasts for six minutes, bookends with a finale that returns the story to New Haven, where, fighting through terrible physical and psychological injury, Porter takes the stage at Woolsey Hall—but not before a quick montage finally shows us some real-life campus locations.
The Skulls (2000), 4:45, 10:06, 12:58
This movie reimagines Yale’s Skull and Bones as The Skulls, a powerful secret society willing to commit and conceal murder to maintain both power and secrets. Such a sinister portrayal of such a thinly veiled inspiration could have damaged Yale’s real-world reputation and earned the filmmakers a lawsuit. So they hatched one o those plans that’s so crazy it actually works, banishing from their film any mention of the film’s primary setting.
The extraordinary boldness of the move was nevertheless rivaled by the filmmakers’ boldness in undermining it. They couldn’t seem to help themselves when it came to dropping hints that their setting is indeed Yale—putting a small white “Y” on dark blue uniforms; naming the university’s athletic teams “the Bulldogs.” Not long into the film, the voice of a campus DJ drifts quietly out of a radio: “There’s a new moon over New Haven, and it’s the witching hour. You’re listening to Rob Coleman, ‘The Night Owl,’ on W.Y.L.E.”
And if that isn’t enough to convince you that The Skulls is set at Y.[A.]L.E.—never mind the additional evidence, from a conspicuous mention of Mory’s to a gigantic blue “Y” on a gymnasium wall—the makers of The Skulls would like to keep you in mind for any future jury selection.
Written by Dan Mims. Image features a still from The Skulls.
