PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM 79 Harold & Maude Put Pedal to the Metalacross Dumbarton Bridge Harold and Maude are certainly one of the Bay Area’s odder film couples. In this cult classic, a death-obsessed young man who drives a hearse and has a habit of staging melodramatic fake suicides goes on wild escapades all around the Peninsula with his 79-year-old car thief of a girlfriend. Their misadventures take them The Italianate Coleman Mansion might be held in esteem by historians and architects, but to the kids in Escape to Witch Mountain, it’s another jungle gym. In this 1975 Disney film, the first glimpse the audience gets of the manor-turnedorphanage is of youngsters shimmying up its Corinthian columns and sliding down the handrail flanking the front steps. In the real world, the Menlo Park estate was converted into a private school, not an orphanage—and some of its lucky students played extras in the film. You’ll spot a number of Peninsula School kids chasing each other around in the background while the camera follows Tony and Tia, a young psychic and telekinetic. The field trip to the cinema was shot nearby at the Fine Arts Theatre on California Avenue. It stopped showing screenings long ago—serving as an oriental rug shop, then ZombieRunner, the beloved cafe and running store—but you’ll still find the original marquee above the entry. The Escape to Witch Mountain Kids Enter Coleman Mansion from St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto (where the couple first meet) to Marshall Street in Redwood City (where Maude “liberates” a street tree with the intention of transplanting it in the forest) to the old Dumbarton Bridge (where Maude peels off, a motorcycle cop in hot pursuit). There’s more. Hillsborough’s Rosecourt Mansion along leafy Eucalyptus Avenue acts as Harold’s family home. In real life, the private residence belonged to George T. Cameron, publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle. And let’s not forget the scene at Mori Point, a picturesque spot in Pacifica where a car careens wildly off the cliffs. PHOTOGRAPHY: ROBB MOST
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTcxMjMwNg==