List of films shot in Hamilton, Ontario

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also: People from Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton, Ontario has become a very popular destination for the TV/ Film Industry and the Hamilton Film Liaison Office has made it publically clear in the local print media that they are committed to further development of this industry in the City. Hamilton boasts hundreds of unique filming locations and attracts dozen of film and television productions each year. Support for this industry continues to grow locally with government officials and area residents all welcoming filmmakers into the community. Many of these productions have chosen Hamilton as their home base because of an open to filming attitude and Regional Tax Incentives. For example, if you are a production company from the U.S. filming in Toronto you get a 33% tax break, However the same production company gets 39% tax break (6% more than Toronto) filming in Hamilton because Hamilton is outside the ACTRA ZONE of Toronto (Actor's Union). The incentives are even greater for Canadian production companies. If you are a Canadian production company you also get a 33% tax break filming in Toronto, However the same production company gets a 43% tax break filming in Hamilton (10% more than Toronto).^[1]Some of the big name Hollywood Actors who filmed in Hamilton in 2006 include: Harvey Keitel, Eugene Levy, Steve Martin, Michelle Pfeiffer, John Travolta, Mark Wahlberg, Christopher Walken and Robin Williams.^[2]

Julia Arthur

Hamilton also figures prominently in a number of TV commercials. In the current (January 2007) Lotto 6/49 commercials, people are doing their 'happy dance' all over town. Brown Cows took over James Street South at Main for a chocolate milk protest. And, ING used the historic bank building at Main and James as their backdrop.^[3]

McMaster University president Peter George joined Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty^[4]; who is also a McMaster University alumnus, on a 17-day trip to India (January 2007). The trip was intended to lure that country's $1.7-billion film industry to shoot in Ontario, a.k.a. Bollywood North.^[5]

Local TV station CHCH introduced Canadians to Smith & Smith, which featured Steve and Morag Smith (the former better known from his stint as Red Green). The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was a Canadian children's television series which was also produced by CHCH in 1971. It was syndicated to television stations across Canada and the United States, and occasionally still appears today in some TV markets. A quirky sketch comedy series, the show's cast included Billy Van, Fishka Rais, Guy Big, Mitch Markowitz, Vincent Price and Julius Sumner Miller. Van, in fact, played the vast majority of the characters. 130 episodes of the series were made, in one single nine-month span of time starting in 1971. "Don Cherry's Grapevine" began airing on CHCH TV in the 1980's and shot on location at the restaurant Cherry had in town, also by the same name. The restaurant was on Main Street West. CHCH also produced local broadcasts such as Tiny Talent Time and The Party Game. ^[6]

Power Play was a Canadian television drama series, which aired on CTV from 1998 to 2000. The show starred Michael Riley as Brett Parker, a former New York City sports agent who became the general manager of a (fictional) National Hockey League franchise, the Hamilton Steelheads. ^[7]

Some Hamiltonians played a part in the early development of Hollywood. These include; Jean Adair (1873-1953)^[8], Julia Arthur (1868-1959)^[9], Douglass Dumbrille (1889–1974)^[10] and Florence Lawrence (1890-1938) who was a silent film actress and often referred to as "Hollywood's First Movie Star." She was also known as "The Biograph Girl" and "The Girl of a Thousand Faces". During her lifetime, Lawrence appeared in more than 270 films for various motion picture companies. ^[11] Del Lord, (Grimsby, Ontario) was an early Hollywood film director and actor, best known as a director of Three Stooges films. Interested in the theatre, he traveled to New York City then when fellow Canadian, Mack Sennett offered him a job at his new Keystone Studios, Lord went on to work in Hollywood, California. There, he played the driver of the Keystone Kops police van, appearing in numerous of the successful films.^[12]

Modern day contributions to Hollywood by Hamiltonians include Second City Television alumni Eugene Levy, Martin Short and Dave Thomas. All three Hamltonians attended McMaster University along with John Candy in the 1970s.^[13] Among the well known movie directors and producers in Hollywood from Hamilton are; Daniel Goldberg (Space Jam, Twins)^[14] and Slovakian-born, Canadian-raised Ivan Reitman. He is most remembered for directing and producing a string of comedies, mostly in the 1980s and 1990s (Meatballs, Stripes and Ghostbusters). Reitman is also a founder of the McMaster Film Board at McMaster University.^[15] Reitman and Goldberg have worked together in the past on a number of film productions and continue to work together today as partners in Northern Lights Entertainment; a highly regarded film and television production company.^[16]^[17]^[18]