{"id":461059,"date":"2026-09-12T00:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461059\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T00:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T00:00:08","slug":"was-that-san-pedro-museum-shines-spotlight-on-towns-film-appearances-daily-breeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/461059\/","title":{"rendered":"Was that San Pedro? Museum shines spotlight on town\u2019s film appearances \u2013 Daily Breeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey, that looks like San Pedro.<\/p>\n

But no, it\u2019s San Francisco. Or Hawaii. Or Guatanamo Bay.<\/p>\n

Wait, it\u2019s Batman\u2019s cave!<\/p>\n

Yep. San Pedro \u2014 as a stand-in \u2014 has been all of those and more.<\/p>\n

Akin to the role of a chameleon, the historic port town most often plays somewhere else when it comes to Hollywood, said Joshua Stecker of the San Pedro Heritage Museum.<\/p>\n

The museum\u2019s \u201cSan Pedro on Film: San Pedro in Disguise\u201d will explore all of that with a live event at 3 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Grand Annex, 434 W. Sixth St.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Pedro rarely plays itself in TV and film,\u201d said Stecker.<\/p>\n

Instead, it\u2019s often used when a generic L.A. historic scene is needed, he said, such as its role in the early 2020s remake of \u201cPerry Mason\u201d as an HBO streaming series,<\/a> set in \u00a0Los Angeles circa 1932.<\/p>\n

But it has collected a wide array of location credits through the years \u2014 adding to an impressive list of San Pedro closeups on film.<\/p>\n

Who hasn\u2019t caught glimpses of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, Sixth Street, Fort MacArthur or Angels Gate Park in numerous films and TV shows?<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the town and port get on-screen credit, as in the 1950s TV series \u201cWaterfront\u201d starring Preston Foster.<\/p>\n

But mostly, San Pedro is incognito, playing other places, often in other times.<\/p>\n

will explore all of that with its live event.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Pedro on Film: San Pedro in Disguise\u201d \u2014 hosted by Stecker, president of the museum and the publisher of the San Pedro Today magazine \u2014 will explore the port town\u2019s recurring role as a chameleon on screen, using clips from notable films, TV shows, and commercials shot in familiar businesses and parts of town that were transformed to look and feel like another place and time.<\/p>\n

The recent remake of \u201cPerry Mason\u201d revamped San Pedro\u2019s historic downtown district as a generic midcentury L.A. setting, without ever mentioning San Pedro.<\/p>\n

Other examples are numerous.<\/p>\n

Warehouse One appears as the bat cave in 1997\u2019s \u201cBatman & Robin,\u201d starring George Clooney as the caped crusader.<\/p>\n

\u201cPearl Harbor\u201d from 2001, starring Ben Affleck, also includes glimpses scenes in the port town.<\/p>\n

And \u201cBuffy the Vampire Slayer\u201d used the ocean-view park area in front of the Korean Friendship Bell in Angels Gate Park.<\/p>\n

Other films with scenes shot in San Pedro have included \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d the sequel to \u201cSilence of the Lambs\u201d and \u201c50 First Dates.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, the TV series \u201cNCIS Origins\u201d has turned parts of Fort MacArthur into Camp Pendleton.<\/p>\n

Tickets to\u201dSan Pedro on Film: San Pedro in Disguise\u201d are $25, available at the door (cash and card accepted) or online through bit.ly\/sponfilm<\/a>. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. and raffle tickets will also be available on site for $5 each, also benefiting the museum, which is a nonprofit.<\/p>\n

The museum is building a collection of San Pedro memorabilia and is still looking for a brick-and-mortar home to begin displaying it all. Some of the artifacts and historical photos will be on display at the event.<\/p>\n

For more information and questions, email info@sanpedroheritagemuseum.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hey, that looks like San Pedro. But no, it\u2019s San Francisco. Or Hawaii. Or Guatanamo Bay. Wait, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,3172,4064,23,131,133,132,47,137,1399,100,1439],"class_list":["post-461059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-harbor-area","tag-local-history","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-movies","tag-news","tag-san-pedro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}