Can you spot the DFW locations in the trailer for this Robert Redford movie?
June 6,2018
Star-Telegram article by Robert Philpot
Late last year, we began hearing reports that Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Tom Waits and others were shooting a movie in Fort Worth.
We had a little trouble verifying, until Fort Worth City Councilman Dennis Shingleton let the cat out of the bag during a presentation by the Fort Worth Film Commission during a council work session.
"In touting all the great movies and television shows that have filmed in Fort Worth, Shingleton asked, 'Didn’t Robert Redford do a shot or two here in the city in a bank right downtown?'," the Star-Telegram's Sandra Baker reported in December.
Redford was filming "The Old Man & the Gun," the latest movie from director David Lowery, who grew up n Irving and attended the University of Dallas (Lowery is no stranger to filming in Fort Worth or other North Texas locations).
Redford was in Fort Worth filming Oct. 22 and 23, the Fort Worth Police confirmed to the Star-Telegram in December. Filming took place at the Worthington National Bank at Main and Fourth streets, across from Sundance Square Plaza, and scenes were reportedly filmed inside Frost Bank on Camp Bowie Boulevard, and inside the HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital on Lancaster and Summit.
Outdoor scenes were done on South Jennings Avenue, between Vickery Boulevard and Broadway Avenue, on South Hemphill Street and behind the Firestone & Robertson distillery on Vickery.
The film is about an elderly bank robber who had managed to escape from prison over a dozen times in his life before moving to a retirement community. He then looks to spice things up with another heist, according to the film’s page on IMDb. The movie, dure for release Oct. 5, also stars Sissy Spacek, Elisabeth Moss and Danny Glover.
The trailer, which was released this week, prominently features Redford charming Spacek in a diner, but according to Jessica Christopherson, Fort Worth’s Film Commissioner, the diner scenes were likely filmed in Ohio.
But in a Twitter exchange with the Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy, Christopherson says there are scenes shot at Leonard Subway Tunnels and Tarrant County Belknap Facility as well as Worthington and Frost banks. She says filming was done at several other locations around Fort Worth that aren't included in the trailer.
One of the more visibly Texan signs in the trailer — literally, the sign for "Texas Loan & Commerce" — was actually shot in Newport, Kentucky, a town just on the other side of the Ohio River Cincinnati. According to the Northern Kentucky Tribune, Heritage Bank in Newport played the role of Texas Loan & Commerce.
But Waco's American Bank is clearly playing itself in the trailer.
Fort Worth's Sundance Square, of course, is named for the Sundance Kid, whom Redford played in 1969's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Redford and Lowery had previously worked together on the director's update of "Pete's Dragon."
Lowery's 2017 movie "A Ghost Story" featured a much-talked about scene in which star Rooney Mara's character, mourning the death of her husband, eats an entire vegan chocolate cream pie — made by Fort Worth's Spiral Diner —in several, long silent minutes.
Our Matt Martinez attempted to duplicate the feat in this video, with commentary from former Star-Telegram staffer Courtney Ortega. Matt was not silent.
Locations Mentioned: Sundance Square Plaza, Worthington National Bank