Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

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tesg
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by tesg »

Animal House was shot entirely at the University of Oregon and locations around the Eugene, Oregon area.

It's been years since I've seen it, and I can't remember if the supermarket scenes had any distinct markers or not.
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BK31
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by BK31 »

I was just watching Repo Man on Netflix on demand tonight and one of the early scenes has Otto tagging and stacking cans of generic cling peaches in a 'pik n' pay.' At the very end of the credits there is a special thanks to Ralphs Supermarkets which is what I'll assume they filmed it in. There are some good shots with aisle wayfinders and decor in the background if anyone can verify it.
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by Gunter Caddington »

Gunter Caddington wrote:Bachelor In Paradise (1961) - OK Bob Hope movie with scenes in an LA-area Hughes supermarket.

From some of the scenes in the store - apparently Hughes was an IGA affiliate in the early 60s' - there were several posters in the store with prominent IGA logos!


Sorry, gang--couldn't figure out how to quote and reply to a 5 year old post. The above was quoted from Jamcool on Page 1 of this thread.

The film was on TCM last night. The Hughes Market was on Parthenia Street, just west of where Parthenia curves into Van Nuys Boulevard in Panorama City. This was the only market I ever saw with a Porte-cochere at the entrance until years later when I saw one in upper New York state. I would assume they were more common in the east given the difference in climate from California ...

I don't think Hughes was ever an affiliate of IGA--more likely those scenes in the film were done on a sound stage with IGA posters added for "flavor". Many of the interior shots, though, look like they were filmed inside the market itself.

There might have been some product placement going on here--I noticed the round Quaker Oatmeal cartons, and cans or bottles of Hires Root Beer in practically every shot.

I think the Porte-cochere lasted into the late 1960's. Time was not kind to the structure--I remember it being somewhat battered looking before it was torn down. The Market itself is still there, now an ethnic Hispanic store. Haven't been inside in years--it was pretty frowsy looking the last time I did go in--but the exterior looks to have been remodeled since then--so, maybe the interior has been, too.

Gang--I was able to visit this market while I was down in LA for Thanksgiving.

This former Hughes is now an "El Super". In addition to the Porte-cochere being demolished, the entire inside has been gutted and replaced by a warehouse store setting. It looks like some of the original terrazzo flooring remains at the very front of the store. The lower portion of the "tower" that supported the exterior Hughes sign is also still there. If you've seen Bachelor in Paradise, you'll know this was once a very nice looking store.

One quirk I noticed from the film:

The aisle identifiers were topped by lanterns with the aisle numbers on all four sides (similar to the check-out line fixtures) with the identifying signs hanging off of them. In the film, the lanterns were illuminated--something I NEVER saw whenever we shopped at this Hughes. I always assumed the lanterns were not functional until I saw the film.

BTW: The IMDB gives the address of this Market as 8231 Woodman Avenue, Panorama City. That is not correct, but I have seen this on some other websites related to the film. The correct location is 14620 Parthenia Street, Panorama City. The Woodman Avenue address cited was actually a former Dales Market--now a Seafood City. Maybe the scenes at the meat counter with the IGA signs were filmed at Dales and that's how the Woodman address slipped into the IMDB. Does anyone know if Dales was ever affiliated with IGA?

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Post by Ephrata1966 »

Edric Floyd wrote:You also see a Grand Union store in the background in "Saturday Night Fever".
Funny, I heard "Night Fever" at an A&P closing sale once...
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by Groceteria »

Watching a "Maude" rerun where she just announced that she'd spent her day "shopping for food values at Bohack, the A&P, Finast, and Big Bear."

She wouldn't have any of those options in Tuckahoe now. She might not even have had all of them in 1972...
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by Gunter Caddington »

Gunter Caddington wrote:
Gunter Caddington wrote:Bachelor In Paradise (1961) - OK Bob Hope movie with scenes in an LA-area Hughes supermarket.

BTW: The IMDB gives the address of this Market as 8231 Woodman Avenue, Panorama City. That is not correct, but I have seen this on some other websites related to the film. The correct location is 14620 Parthenia Street, Panorama City. The Woodman Avenue address cited was actually a former Dales Market--now a Seafood City. Maybe the scenes at the meat counter with the IGA signs were filmed at Dales and that's how the Woodman address slipped into the IMDB. Does anyone know if Dales was ever affiliated with IGA?

Gunter


Gang: I hope I'm not beating this topic to death, but during my Christmas visit to LA, I visited the Seafood City Market at 8231 Woodman. The interior looks like it COULD have been used for the meat counter scenes in the film. (Which still begs the question--was Dales ever an IGA affiliate?)

In its current incarnation, the store is an Asian Supermarket. The place was absolutely spotless inside, and the cashiers and staff were extremely friendly. On the outside, Seafood City retains much of its Dales late 1950s early 1960s character. The turquoise tiles are still in place, along with the folded canopy. Compared to what happened to the Hughes Market on Parthenia, I think this former Dales made out just fine.

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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by Toby Radloff »

Ephrata1966 wrote:Not sure, but I thought the 1978 movie Animal House took place in Southern California. Part of it takes place in a local supermarket.

The supermarket in "Animal House" was called "Food King". I remember reading a Portland, OR newspaper at the Cleveland main library's newspaper room around the time the film came out in 1978...there was an ad for "Food King Independent Supermarkets". I assume that the Food King in Cottage Grove, OR (where parts of "Animal House" were filmed) is part of that co-op.
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by Jeffrey55 »

Groceteria wrote:Watching a "Maude" rerun where she just announced that she'd spent her day "shopping for food values at Bohack, the A&P, Finast, and Big Bear."

She wouldn't have any of those options in Tuckahoe now. She might not even have had all of them in 1972...
I think you're right about that. My memory, admittedly unreliable, is that Bohack stores were all in the city, not up in Tuckahoe. And I have never heard of Big Bear. She certainly could have gone to A&P and Finast, since even if not actually IN Tuckahoe, there would have been locations nearby.

However, I just discovered a post at http://mingum.blogspot.com/2010/01/bohacks.html by none other than Richard Bohack, great-grandnephew of the founder, and he says that shortly before the chain folded in 1977 they expanded into Westchester, but that their rapid expansion was a disaster and some of the stores lasted only a couple of months. Not sure exactly how this would jive with the timeline for Maude. (I have to check whether Richard's blog entry has been linked to in the main Bohack section...if not I'll link to it there too, as it contains some fascinating info.)
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by maynesG »

Hi, I can tell you that there was a Finast and and A&P in Tuckahoe. The Big Bear was a name of a huge supermarket in Jersey City in the late 40!s and owned by Food Fair.
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Please)

Post by Dean »

Noticed in an old episode of QUINCY, M.E.--a character sipping on a can of a SLIM PRICE soft drink.

SLIM PRICE was carried at VONS. Think they may still have a few products left under that brand...including paper towels. A store brand a tier lower than the traditional store brand also carried.
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Ple

Post by LadyNoir »

There is a very low budget late 1970s movie with Joe Pesci called The Death Collector/Family Enforcer (my husband had a dvd that had two alternate titles after looking this up imdb) and in the movie there is a scene outside an East Coast Stop and Shop (This was filmed in New Jersey) as well as a strip mall with other retail in which names (sans a McDonald's in the parking lot) are not visible. While no scenes are filmed inside the store itself the camera pans very close to the grocery store window and you can make out the checkout and the interior of the store.

Also going back to earlier posts on Roseanne, while Landford was supposed to be a town in Illinois, there are a couple of scenes somewhere in the earlier to mid seasons in which a Dominick's bag can be seen. Ironically, Dominick's is now owned by Safeway (at the time Roseanne was on their air it wasn't). So sometimes they tried to be accurate.
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Ple

Post by Jeffrey55 »

That's odd... I didn't know there were Stop & Shop supermarkets in New Jersey in the 70s. I thought they didn't expand there until much more recently, and had in fact been limited to the New England states, without even moving into New York until the 90s. Am I mistaken?
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Ple

Post by LadyNoir »

Jeff,

Imdb the says the movie was filmed in New Jersey, but alas it could have been filmed elsewhere or not entirely in New Jersey. I am not sure. The only Stop and Shops I am familiar with are the ones where I grew up in Ohio going to one located in suburban Cleveland. I think the Ohio Stop and Shops had nothing to do with the east coast ones. I have checked Pleasant Family Shopping for this a while back when I saw the movie. The Stop and Shop logo seen in the film is very similar to the ones on the website in which Stop and Shop is paired with Bradlee's (but I definately did not see Bradlee's in that film). I wish still had the dvd but I gave it away after watching it.

Oh and warning to those who want to check out the movie to see the Stop and Shop, it is truly a very low budget, awful film even for it being a 70s film.
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Ple

Post by Jeffrey55 »

Histories of Stop & Shop seem to differ. This one http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company- ... story.html seems to confirm that there were no Stop & Shop supermarkets in New Jersey in the 70s. But the Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_%26_Shop indicates that there were, indeed, Stop & Shops in New Jersey in 1980, particularly in the Philadelphia area, but that the chain pulled out of the state in 1982. However, it's hard to rely on Wikipedia; for instance, that page shows only two logos, with one being described as the "original" although it most definitely was not. The logo used in the 1970s was this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10073060@N00/3295378938/. Is that the one you saw in the movie? A more definitive source is, of course, THIS site, and though there isn't a thorough history of Stop & Shop, the history of A&P here http://www.groceteria.com/store/nationa ... p-history/ indicates that A&P acquired 17 Stop & Shop stores in New Jersey in 1981 -- so that settles it!
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Re: Vintage Supermarkets in Movies and TV (Old Ones Only Ple

Post by Rob_L »

Stop & Shop had been in NJ since 1969-ish.. There were quite a few stores, I can remember Wyckoff, Wayne, and quite a few other locations. THe logo on the tractor trailer was the logo that was used all throughout the 70's...

However, they did disappear at one point in the late 70's - ear;y 80's, with A&P buying most of their stores.. The name did not reappear in NJ until Ahold rebranded their Edwards stores to Stop & Shop ...
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