The mural located on the 1400 block of Sansom Street.
A new mural in Center City celebrates the legacy of film in Philadelphia by highlighting movies, people, events, places and organizations that have promoted the city and its culture. But here’s what you won’t see in the public art: two films that were shot on Drexel University’s campus within the past 15 years or so.
The mural, “Films Shaped by a City,” is a collaboration between
Mural Arts, BlackStar Film Festival, the Philadelphia Film Society and the artist Marian Bailey. You can see the mural on the 1400 block of Sansom Street, on the back of the building housing the Philadelphia Film Society.
It depicts 18 films that were shot and/or set in Philadelphia. Those include “Rocky” (of course),“Philadelphia,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “The Sixth Sense,” “Trading Places” and “Hustle.” With a limited canvas and an approval process that incorporated results from a public survey and an advisory panel, there couldn’t have been room to represent every single movie ever shot in the city.
Of the two movies filmed at Drexel within the last two decades, only one incorporates Drexel into the script and features scenes set on the University City Campus. The other does not — and while you’ve likely never heard of it, you’ll probably recognize its stars and settings.
The movie prominently featuring Drexel is the 2002 film “Somewhere in Queens,” which was directed and co-written by Ray Romano (who also stars in the film). Queens, New York, is where most of the scenes takes place, but the plot does include a storyline about his character’s son considering playing basketball for the University, which the family visits.
As shown in the trailer below, you can see parts of the movie that took place in the Daskalakis Athletic Center (1:13) and the Korman Quad (1:15). Besides scenes featuring basketball being played in the gymnasium and the family walking through campus, the movie also includes jokes about Drexel’s name.
The other recent film shot at the University is the 2010 romantic comedy “How Do You Know,” which features Reese Witherspoon in a love triangle with Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd. It also stars Jack Nicholson, Tony Shalhoub and Kathryn Hahn.
The film was directed by James L. Brooks, whose films also include “Terms of Endearment,” “Broadcast News” and “As Good as It Gets.” This was his fourth and final collaboration with Nicholson, who appeared in all those films; it is also the last movie Nicholson ever starred in. Nicholson won Oscars for best actor in “As Good as It Gets” and best supporting actor in “Terms of Endearment,” for which Brooks also won three Academy Awards for best picture, director and adapted screenplay.
In “How Do You Know,” Witherspoon plays a former professional softball player torn between Wilson’s character, a pitcher for the Washington Nationals professional baseball team, and Rudd’s character, a recently fired executive formerly employed at the company run by his father, played by Nicholson.
Some of the movie’s interior scenes were filmed at what is now the Arlen Specter US Squash Center located at 32nd Street and Lancaster Avenue on Drexel’s University City Campus. The current building housing squash courts is actually a former National Guard armory and multipurpose venue known as the “Philadelphia Armory,” and the large space had a custom set built inside just for the movie. You’d never know of the Drexel connection just by watching the film, which also isn’t even set in Philadelphia.
On-set photos published in the Philadelphia Inquirer show Wilson on campus near his movie trailer and riding a bicycle near Drexel’s Pearlstein Learning Center at 32nd and Market streets.
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