The “Beautiful Girls” Bus Stop

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The fourth and final Stillwater location that my family and I stalked while in Minnesota two weeks ago was the “Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts” bus stop where Willie Conway (aka Timothy Hutton) was first dropped off upon returning home for his high school reunion at the very beginning of fave movie Beautiful Girls.  In real life, that location is not actually a bus stop at all (nor is it located in the fictional town of Knight’s Ridge, either, of course), but a liquor store named Kinsel’s Liquor which, as fate would have it, just so happened to be our very first stalking stop in Downtown Stillwater.  It’s pretty darn cool that my parents and I began our Stillwater journey in the exact same spot where Willie began his in Beautiful Girls.  🙂  I found this location thanks to fellow stalker Owen and the highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list which he procured for me before my trip.  And even though Kinsel’s Liquor appeared in only one very brief scene in the movie, since we were in the area and since it is the location where the storyline of Beautiful Girls truly begins, I just had to stalk the place. 

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The first few minutes of Beautiful Girls actually take place about a thousand miles east of Stillwater, at a New York City lounge named the 1889 Bar & Grill, where Willie works as a piano player.  After the 1889 closes for the night, Willie says good-bye to his boss and heads over to New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal where he purchases a one-way ticket to his hometown of Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts.  Why a one-way ticket, you ask?  Because at that point in the movie, Willie is at a crossroads in his life and is unsure of whether or not he will ever return to the Big Apple.  Sadly, though, like so many other Beautiful Girls locations, the 1889 Bar & Grill is no longer.  The space which once housed the lounge was torn down in 2006 to make way for a luxury hi-rise condominium building named 100 West 18th.  Such a bummer!

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Early the next morning, Willie gets dropped off in Knight’s Ridge, at a fictional bus stop located right in front of Kinsel’s liquor, where his high school buddy Michael “Mo” Morris (aka Noah Emmerich) is waiting to pick him up. 

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After a huge hug, Willie and Mo retreat to Mo’s station wagon, which is parked on the south side of the liquor store, where the two men discuss Willie’s current girlfriend of about a year, Tracy, whom he is unsure if he wants to marry.  The men then head to Willie’s childhood home and the story takes off from there.  🙂  So, there it is – today’s post.  It’s a short one, I know.  In fact, truth be told, being that this location is “just” a bus stop, and not even a real one at that, I hesitated to even blog about it.  But because it is the place where one of my all-time favorite movies truly began, it is extremely sentimental to me and I decided I just had to! 

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location for me!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The Beautiful Girls bus stop is actually Kinsel’s Liquor Store, which is located at 118 East Chestnut Street in Stillwater, Minnesota.  The Greyhound bus dropped Willie off on the east side of the store, while Mo’s car was parked on the south side.  The 1889 Bar & Grill was formerly located at 108 West 18th Street in New York City.

The River Oasis Cafe from “Beautiful Girls”

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Another Stillwater, Minnesota location that my family and I stalked last week was the River Oasis Cafe from fave movie Beautiful Girls.  And I’m really hoping that my fellow stalkers are not yet sick of reading about Beautiful Girls locations, ‘cause there are still quite a few of them that I’ve yet to blog about.  😉  Anyway, I found out about this locale thanks to the master locations list that fellow stalker Owen purveyed for me before I left on my trip to the North Star State.  Thank you, Owen!  And even though the River Oasis Cafe only appeared in one fairly brief scene in the movie, I just had to stalk the place.  Especially since my mom was absolutely starving upon our arrival in Stillwater and mentioned that she wanted to dine at a “local greasy spoon”, to which I said, “I know just the place!”  🙂

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The River Oasis Cafe appeared in the very beginning of Beautiful Girls, in one of the opening scenes in which Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon), Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport), and Kev (aka Max Perlich) are shown eating an early morning breakfast after finishing that day’s snow plow rounds.  And I am very happy to report that the restaurant looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie!

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Except for the large billboard which stands in the cafe’s front parking lot, though, which was covered over during the filming to read “Welcome to Knight’s Ridge”, the fictional town where Beautiful Girls was set.

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Because a wide shot of the interior of the River Oasis Cafe was never shown in the movie, I wasn’t exactly sure of where Paul, Tommy, and Kev sat during the scene, but thankfully our SUPER nice waitress was able to point me in the right direction.  🙂

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And while some people were already occupying the Beautiful Girls’ booth when we first arrived at the restaurant, as soon as they left I immediately ran over and snagged it so that I could snap a pic in the exact spot where Matt Dillon and Max Perlich sat during the filming.  🙂

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Ironically enough, while we were dining my dad randomly took a photograph of the above-pictured sign which hangs near the River Oasis Cafe’s front door.  So, imagine my surprise when I re-watched Beautiful Girls upon returning home from Minnesota and saw that very same sign hanging in pretty much the very same spot near the restaurant’s front door in the scene in which Paul is shown making a phone call to his former girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton).  Nice work, dad!!!  🙂

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While we were stalking the Cafe, my parents and I had the pleasure of meeting Craig Beemer – the restaurant’s owner/dishwasher, as he likes to call himself  🙂 – who truly could NOT have been nicer.  Not only did he agree to pose for a photograph with me for my blog, but he also snapped a pic of me sitting in the Beautiful Girls’ booth to put on the River Oasis Cafe’s “Faces of Oasis” Facebook page.  🙂  He even seemed amenable to my suggestion of putting a plaque on the Beautiful Girls’ booth so that diners would be aware of the movie magic that took place in that spot just over fourteen years ago!  So, Craig, if you’re reading this, I fully expect to see that plaque in place the next time I’m in Stillwater!  🙂  I honestly cannot recommend stalking the River Oasis Cafe enough – it’s a fabulous restaurant, which serves up some excellent food, and the staff truly could not be nicer!  Love it!  Love it!  Love it!

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On a side note – The owner of Willie’s house from Beautiful Girls, which I blogged about on Wednesday, mentioned that his neighbors always joke about creating a tour of all of the movie’s locations in the Stillwater area.  I told him what a FABULOUS idea I thought that was, but I don’t think he took me seriously.  But, let me tell you, even though I’ve already visited pretty much every spot which appeared in the movie, I would SO sign up for that tour.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location for me!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The River Oasis Cafe from Beautiful Girls is located at 806 Main Street South in Stillwater, Minnesota.  You can visit the River Oasis Cafe’s Facebook page here.

The Drug Store and Beauty Salon from “Beautiful Girls”

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Another Stillwater location that I was incredibly excited about stalking was the drugstore where Gina Barrisano (aka Rosie O’Donnell) spewed a very choicely-worded rant at Willie Conway (aka Timothy Hutton) and Tommy “Birdman” Rowland (aka Matt Dillon) over their superficial treatment of women in fave movie Beautiful Girls.  Fellow stalker Owen had actually managed to track down this locale – and Willie and Marty’s houses, come to think of it – long before getting his hands on the flick’s master location list, which I talked about yesterday.  Sadly, though, the Beautiful Girls drugstore, which was named St. Croix Rexall Drugs, closed in 2008 and the space which once housed it has since been completely remodeled and turned into a Dairy Queen.  When Owen first told me the sad news, I was reminded of the scene in You’ve Got Mail, during which Kathleen Kelly (aka Meg Ryan) talks about the closing of her children’s bookstore and says, “People are always telling you that change is a good thing, but all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all has happened.  My store is closing this week.  I own a store – did I ever tell you that?  It’s a lovely store and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap.”  Sigh.  Couldn’t have said it better myself, Meg!  I mean can you think of anything more depressing than a Dairy Queen?  Ugh, I so hate change!  I can’t even begin to describe how depressed I was over learning that the drugstore was no longer, but because it was the site of one of my all-time favorite movie scenes, I just had to stalk the location where it once stood.

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Only the interior of St. Croix Rexall Drugs was used in Beautiful Girls.

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And it, of course, looks completely different now than it did then.  When locations change, I often stalk them anyway in the hopes that there will be something recognizable – some small remnant of the movie magic which once took place there – which still remains at the site, but, as you can see, that, sadly, was not the case with the Beautiful Girls drugstore. 

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The exterior of the Dairy Queen is pictured above, but, sadly, it, too, was completed re-vamped after St. Croix Rexall Drugs closed.  You can see some exterior and interior photographs of what the building used to look like on this Flikr page.

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At the time of filming, the salon where Gina worked – and where she actually began her rant – was a place called Smitty’s Barber Shop and it was located right around the corner from St. Croix Rexall Drugs. 

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Sadly though, that, too, has since been closed and is now a tattoo parlor named Tatts by Zapp.  Such a bummer!

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The interior of Smitty’s was also used for a brief scene between Rosie O’Donnell, Mira Sorvino, and Anne Bobby in Beautiful Girls, but the tattoo parlor was closed when we showed up to stalk the place, so I wasn’t able to peek inside to see if it looked at all the same as it did in the movie.

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As bummed as I was to discover that both the drugstore and the salon had long since closed down, I still had an absolute blast in Stillwater.  The city is BY FAR one of the most adorable places I have ever visited in my life!  I loved, loved, loved it!  So did my parents, who, as I mentioned in a previous post, are seriously considering spending a few months there after my mom retires next year, which I think is so incredibly cool!  Especially since we never would have even known about the place had it not been for Beautiful Girls.  Fellow stalker Owen and I were just discussing how visiting off-the-beaten-path areas one might otherwise never have known about is one of our very favorite things about stalking.  When my best friend Robin came to visit me from Switzerland last year, he asked how it was that I knew about so many fabulous, not-in-a-guidebook-type spots in Los Angeles and New York.  DUH – because they were all in a movie or TV show, of course!  🙂  Anyway, if you ever have the chance to visit Stillwater, I HIGHLY recommend doing do.  Not only is the architecture unique, quaint, and beautiful . . .

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. . . but there are amazing views of the St. Croix River from pretty much everywhere you look!  It is a truly gorgeous city!

You can watch the not AT ALL suitable for work – unless your speakers are turned off or you have headphones on – drug store scene from Beautiful Girls by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: The former St. Croix Rexall Drug Store, now Dairy Queen, from Beautiful Girls is located at 132 Main Street South in Stillwater, Minnesota.  Gina’s Salon, the former Smitty’s Barber Shop, is now the Tatts by Zapp tattoo parlor, which is located at 235 East Chestnut Street, just around the corner from the Dairy Queen.  To learn more about Stillwater, you can visit the city’s official website here.

The “Beautiful Girls” Houses

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As I remarked last week, one of my very favorite films of all time is the 1996 flick Beautiful Girls.  But, being that no one that I’ve mentioned the movie to as of late has ever even heard of it, I’m guessing it was pretty much a sleeper hit, despite its all-star cast.  Nevertheless, I’ve absolutely loved the film ever since it first came out almost fifteen years ago and have probably seen it no less than thirty times.  So, when I found out that my dad had been accepted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, a light bulb immediately went off in my head, as I had a somewhat vague recollection that Beautiful Girls had been filmed in the North Star State.  A quick visit to the movie’s IMDB filming locations page confirmed my beliefs – the entire thing had been shot on location in the Land of 10,000 Lakes!  So, I immediately called upon “the Team” – aka fellow stalkers Owen, Chas from Itsfilmedthere, and Mike, from MovieShotsLA – to see if they could help me track down some of the locales featured in the flick, which they, sure enough, did.  Amazingly enough, just a few days later, Owen sent me an email with an attachment and, let me tell you, I just about died upon opening it.  Somehow he had gotten his hands on the master location list from the movie – a document which detailed EACH AND EVERY LOCATION WHERE BEAUTIFUL GIRLS WAS SHOT!  I’m not kidding!  I was so excited I just about had a heart attack right then and there!  I had hoped that one of the Team would be able to track down the homes belonging to Willie (aka Timothy Hutton) and Marty (aka Natalie Portman) in the flick, but never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I’d be able to stalk pretty much every location which appeared in the movie.  THANK YOU, OWEN!  🙂

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For those who have yet to see Beautiful Girls – which I am rapidly discovering is most people! – the movie centers around a young piano player named Willie Conway, who returns to his hometown, the fictional Knights Ridge, Massachusetts, in order to attend his high school reunion and to make some life-changing decisions about his future.  While home, he spends time with his old high school buddies and meets his new next-door neighbor, a precocious thirteen year old named Marty, whom he immediately befriends.  According to Wikipedia, screenwriter Scott Rosenberg came up with the idea for Beautiful Girls while spending time in his hometown of Boston while waiting for a response from Disney about a little script he had just submitted to them titled Con Air.  He said, “It was the worst winter ever in this small hometown.  Snow plows were coming by, and I was just tired of writing these movies with people getting shot and killed.  So, I said, ‘There is more action going on in my hometown with my friends dealing with the fact that they can’t deal with turning 30 or with commitment’ – all that became Beautiful Girls.”  Director Ted Demme said of the setting of the film, “[I] wanted to make it look like it’s Anytown, USA, primarily East Coast.  And I also wanted it to feel like a real working-class town.”  Demme found his Anytown, USA in the city of Stillwater, Minnesota, where most of the sites from the movie are located, including the two I most wanted to stalk – the homes belonging to Willie and Marty.

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I am very happy to report that Willie’s house, which is pictured above, looks very much the same today as it did back in 1996 when Beautiful Girls was filmed – minus the snow, of course.  As fate would have it, the owner of the property happened to be outside when we arrived to stalk the place and he truly could NOT have been nicer.  And, although he didn’t purchase the home until 2005, long after Beautiful Girls had been filmed, he knew quite a bit about the movie and what areas of the house had been used in it. 

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As you can see in the house’s real estate listing from 2005, the interior scenes were not actually filmed on the premises.  The home’s real life interior is absolutely gorgeous, while its onscreen counterpart was pretty dismal and dreary.  In the movie, Marty comments to Willie, “It’s a lonely house, you don’t mind me saying.”  And I have to say that the set dressers and production designers did an excellent job of building a set which did, indeed, look very lonely.

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According to the now-owner, the only “interior” of the house that was used in the movie was the second story window, from which Willie talks to Marty late one night in a set-up which Marty describes as “Romeo and Juliet – the dyslexic version.”  😉

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Marty’s house is located right next-door to Willie’s, and it, too, looks much the same as it did in the movie.

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The only difference I noticed is that the fence which surrounded the property in the movie is not there in real life.

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And, of course, I just had to re-create the scene in Beautiful Girls is which Marty is shown “mashing snow” in her side yard – even though there was no actual snow for me to mash.   🙂

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And I was SUPER excited to discover that the little space under the house where Marty stored her sled in the movie was there in real life, too.  So darn cool!  I can’t tell you how heartwarming it was for me to stalk these two residences, as almost all of my favorite scenes from Beautiful Girls took place there.  If you are at all a fan of the movie, I highly recommend stalking the houses as they are sure to bring back some great memories.

On a side note – my absolute favorite scene from Beautiful Girls was the ice-skating scene with Marty and Willie, which you can watch by clicking above.  And while I did not get to stalk the lake where that scene was filmed, I do know its location, thanks to Owen.  For those who are interested, Marty and Willie’s ice skating lake is Lake William, which is located on Minnetonka Boulevard in Shorewood, Minnesota. 

BIG, HUGE THANK YOU to Owen for finding this – and every other Beautiful Girls – location for me!  🙂 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Willie Conway’s house from Beautiful Girls is located at 1337 2nd Street South in Stillwater, Minnesota, about 25 miles east of Minneapolis.  Marty’s house is located right next-door at 1341 2nd Street South.