Breakfast Saturday morning was as overwhelming as the size of the dining room. It had a hot buffet, a cold buffet, and an ala carte menu from which I predictably ordered the beautifully presented smoked salmon.
After breakfast I’d join a reprise of one of the events I’d missed Friday – the location walking tour. The guide, Dan Dewey, appears in the credits as the location coordinator. Dan is from Michigan and spent several years living on Mackinac Island which, together with the fact that he’d assisted the production team on their location scouting visit, made him something of a natural for that position. We met in the parlor at 09:00 as scheduled but between the banter with Dan and the late arriving folks, didn’t set out until 09:30.
The last shall be first.
As we left the Parlor, one of the first locations we encountered is from one of the movie’s more famous shots that happens near the film’s end. In October 2023, it looked like this:
It’s on this bench that Richard, thinking Elise has left with the troupe, sits despondently. Both are contemplating a future none can see where ahead lies mystery. This was shot in the film, using a diopter lens to keep both characters in focus:
Although my photo of the bench isn’t a tight a shot, you can see how the foliage behind Reeve has grown in the more than 40 years since the film was made. We learned from Dan that this shot couldn’t be replicated today because most of the trees are lilacs and there’s a cultural (if not legal) ban on cutting any lilacs on the island. These were first planted in the mid nineteenth century and have become an essential part of Mackinac Island’s identity.
We then set off down the main drive past the now green (yellow in the film) fence that Richard jumps to disturb the sleeping bellman, Arthur, who foolishly had offered to provide any help Richard needed. The shack
is adjacent to the tennis courts and is used by the tennis pro. (One of the interesting aspects of the weekend is that select attendees are recruited to perform reenactments of certain scenes and the fellow in blue directs them. Although he had no volunteers for this scene we’d see him again at our next stop) at the
“Is it you?” Trees.
One bit of tension in SiT stems from the problem that, like Richard, the audience doesn’t meet the young Elise until 45 minutes or so in the film so their initial encounter needs to be memorable. Of course, by this time we’re all rooting for him because we’ve seen what he’s had to overcome to transport himself back in time to 1912. And, in a wonderfully subtle moment, the audience sees Elise before Richard. (If you watch the clip, look closely for her reflection in the window.)
So critical and iconic is this meeting of strangers on the shore of love that INSITE has installed a commemorative marker on a nearby rock and it’s one of the recreated scenes.
We proceeded around the island past Windermere Point – one of the backdrops for what I’ll call the “Lovers Montage”, – along Main Street past Baxter’s which, in the movie, was Baxter’s Coin Shop but is now simply Baxter’s selling lots of SiT souvenirs and memorabilia, past the house that the director used as Laura Roberts’ residence before making our way to the one time site of Mackinac College and the island’s sound stage.
(At the house, Dan, who throughout the day regaled us with amusing and surprising anecdotes of his exploits both on the film and as an island resident, told us how his inside knowledge of the people on Mackinac [usually a permanent population around 500] added to a certain mystique that had arisen about his ability to get things done.
As I recall the story, the owner of the house wasn’t on Mackinac at the time filming took place but Dan knew her well and was able to contact her through some means [remember this is long before the era of cell phones and email] and obtain her permission to shoot there. Since she was away, she had to provide him with instructions on how to break in to the house using a method her children used in her absence. When he did it left the crew suitably impressed with his ingenuity. He said he also secured a daily fee considerably higher than the woman wanted.)
Yes, Virginia, there is a sound stage.
Are you wondering how such a happy circumstance for the filmmakers came to be? If you are, read on. If not, skip this section.
It begins in 1942, when the Moral Re-Armament Movement (MRA) came to Mackinac Island and built a complete filmmaking facility including a sound stage.
(Founded in 1922 by evangelical Christian Frank N.D. Buchman and originally known as the Oxford Group, the movement changed its name to MRA in 1938 hoping to broaden its appeal to all faiths and to generate “a moral and spiritual reawakening in individuals in the hope that this would prevent future wars” although it never lost its evangelical underpinnings.)
Their idea was to produce films that would morally re-arm the nation after the Second World War. In fact, they made very few of these and only one feature, the 1947 Esther Williams vehicle, This Time for Keeps, before closing up shop and relocating to Switzerland. Although it was used for a brief time as part of Mackinac College which enlarged it, added a theater (that was used in the film) and built dormitories that housed the cast and crew, the soundstage itself had essentially not been used for that purpose in more than three decades when the SiT production team came calling.
Although the crew modified the Parlor to serve as the hotel lobby in the film and used the actual Salle a Manger for those scenes, most of the other interiors were shot on the soundstage.
The Final stops on the Location Tour.
We were deep into the day when we stopped in the theater where Elise breaks character and declares her love for Richard
Richard’s seat is marked with a small plaque. It’s here that he looks at his golden lady declaring her love for him and sees the heaven in her eyes is not so far. Many on the tour filled their need to have a photo taken in that seat.
Interestingly, while extras in the cast filled the theater during the original filming of Elise’s monologue, and Jane could play directly to Chris in that special seat, something went wrong with the original footage and she had to re-shoot the scene to an empty theater. Only Richard Matheson – who had written both the screenplay and the book (Bid Time Return) on which it was based – who stood in for Richard Collier was present for the second take. According to Jane, her performance so moved Matheson that he left the theater and returned home to his wife. (This is another of the reenacted scenes.)
Our final stop was the gazebo which has been moved several times from its original location to its current spot not far from Fort Mackinac. It’s a popular spot not just for photos but weddings, too.
It was nearing 16:00 when what remained of our group (the tour had started with 30 – 40 people and had dwindled to about 10) returned to Grand Hotel ending what other regulars called the longest location tour in the history of the event. I had a walk about town before returning to the hotel for the cocktail reception, dinner, the Costume Promenade that lasted for more than 20 minutes, and the program finale.
As for the remainder of my time at Grand Hotel and on Mackinac Island, it was relatively uneventful. I had a lovely breakfast with fellow first timers TH and her mother Sunday morning and wandered the town with them until they got on the ferry for the mainland. After this, I walked some more, returned to the hotel for the final dinner – a buffet style that didn’t require formal dress and that used many of the dishes that had been previously served (an excellent idea to minimize food waste).
Monday, the hotel closes for the season and apparently part of the tradition is that the remaining guests carry in the porch furniture.
At the end of this process, the porch that looked like this
when I arrived Friday afternoon now looked like this.
There’s also a closing ceremony at which a bell gets rung several times, management thanks the guests and staff, and hands out some awards. While it’s something of a production, it’s not quite as elaborate or thrilling as this one at Kellerman’s.
You can see the rest of my photos from the tour – including the gazebo – here and some short videos of the Costume Promenade by using this link.
In the next entry, I’ll leave the island and return to the lower peninsula.