Fountain Springs production not first in area
Christopher Penn and Adrian Pasdar are chased by a construction worker down Oak Street in Mount Carmel in the 1987 film Made In USA. The film was shot in Shenandoah, Mount Carmel, and Centralia.
SHENANDOAH – This weekend’s taping at the former Saint Catherine Hospital is not the first time northern Schuylkill has hosted a film crew.
Over the past 50 years, multiple A- and B-list media productions have filmed scenes in our area.
The Shenandoah, Centralia, and Mount Carmel areas were prominently featured in the 1987 film Made In USA, starring Christopher Penn and Adrian Pasdar.
Scenes were shot on-location in downtown Mount Carmel, in the midst of the razing of Centralia, and at the former B&P Econ-O-Wash laundromat on Shenandoah’s west end.
At one point in the film, the two lead actors board a Schuylkill Transportation System bus labelled for Mount Carmel and Shamokin. The pair are also chased down Oak Street in Mount Carmel as well.
Eventually, the pair leave the area and head westward, travelling through other areas ravaged by environmental crises.
In the late 1980s, Gilberton served as the backdrop for a portion of a film starring Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy. Tupac Shakur also made an appearance in the film.
Under the working title “Git,” local newspaper accounts said a crew from Warner Brothers were in town filming scenes of a BMW driving through the borough, past the Gilberton Coal Company.
None of the actors visited the area, however, and apart from a handful of driving scenes, most of the movie was shot in California.
That film was released in 1991 as Nothing But Trouble and was panned by critics.
Additionally, numerous documentaries have been either partially or entirely filmed in our region.
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Molly Maguires