- Where is Seattle?

- In 1962, the British journalist Alistair Cook, you remember him from "Masterpiece Theater", came to Seattle to check out the World's Fair.

He came away with conflicting impressions from his trip up the Space Needle, which he said will, quote, "offer the town's citizens a God-like view of the grandeur that begins on the horizon and mocks the rather dreary works of man below.

The sprawling freight yards and waterfront and miles of junk and secondhand car lots."

Cook captured the Seattle paradox of those times.

An unglamorous city whose main feature was its setting.

This duality is one that Hollywood exploited.

A gritty city in a pretty place.

The very first Hollywood film shot in Seattle was "Tugboat Annie".

(foghorn blowing) from MGM in the 1930s.

- You talk as if you thought I was an old woman.

- [Knute] And it gives the feel for the Depression era waterfront and its plucky maritime culture.

- You old rat whiskered son of a gun you!

- "Cinderella Liberty", a 1973 film about a sailor on leave records the last years of the Port Town era along First Avenue.

The dreary works of man turned out to have some Hollywood appeal.

In movie after movie from the 1960s through the 1980s, Hollywood used Seattle as a backdrop for crime and car chases.

(car exploding) Take the Space Needle, which was featured in the 1963 Elvis Presley film "It Happened at the World's Fair".

- When was the last time you did eat?

- It's been days.

Nourishment, that's what I need.

- Fine dining and Belgian waffles were given screen time then.

But take a leap to 1974's "Parallax View", a thriller whose opening scenes are set on the Needle where a political assassination takes place.

The hitman in the film must be one of the dumbest in history because he runs to the Needle's roof to escape.

He falls off, of course.

If the Needle was supposed to portend a shiny new future, a decade after it was built it was used to convey some ominous Watergate era tarnish.

One drama offered some hope.

Seattle was known for a high suicide rate but also for its efforts to offer mental health support.

In 1965's "The Slender Thread", Sidney Poitier is a university Washington student volunteer at the new crisis clinic.

He tries to save the life of a woman, played by Anne Bancroft, who has overdosed on sleeping pills.

- She's in a motel.

200 rooms.

- Kick down the doors.

- She lives in a mid-century modern house overlooking Shilshole.

Her husband is a commercial fisherman who is, oddly, often wearing a "Mad Men" style suit and tie.

Still, the picture was a mental health drama that captured a sense of mid-century alienation, as the city galvanizes to help a woman in trouble.

All to a jazzy score by Seattle's Quincy Jones.

In the 1970s, as the region struggled through the Boeing recession, Seattle became a kind of second rate San Francisco, with film chase scenes and "Dirty Harry" knockoffs.

Who can forget the muscle car chase through town by John Wayne in "McQ"?

- That's the only way to go.

- [Knute] Even more impressive was Connie Stevens as a seventies campy crime fighter.

- Police!

Freeze!

Don't anybody move a muscle!

- Her romp through town in a dune buggy in the movie "Scorchy" is epic.

The chase even ends with a shooting atop Ivars and she then leaps off the ferry ramp at Coleman dock.

(water splashing) Seattle also seemed to be a magnet for cinematic con artists.

"Harry in Your Pocket" is a 1973 film shot in part in Union Station, Pioneer Square, and downtown, that features a team of pick pockets.

- Now here are the goods.

- Another con movie is David Mamet's 1987 "House of Games", in which a Seattle psychiatrist, played by Lindsay Crouse, decides to study con men.

A key meeting place is the now gone 2-11 Billiard Club on Union.

The shrink is conned herself, but there's a deadly twist.

And speaking of deadly, the campy thriller "Black Widow", also from 1987, features Debra Winger as a federal investigator who comes to town chasing a female serial killer, played by Teresa Russell, who offs her husbands for money.

This ushered in a darker era, which writer Tim Egan dubbed Northwest Noir.

If Seattle could be a place of crime, then so too could its beautiful surroundings be infused with a sense of menace.

- What kind of fantastic trees have you got growing round here?

- [Knute] Director David Lynch's TV series "Twin Peaks" captures the dark presence of northwest forests and mountains, and starred UW trained actor, Kyle McLaughlin.

- Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Dale Cooper - Lynch's movie prequel in 1992, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" had some Seattle scenes.

But they were overcome by the appearances of demons, visions, dream figures, in a surrealistic hash, and a memorable eerie musical score.

In the nineties, Noir seems to have given way to love, whimsy and grunge.

"Harry and the Hendersons" offered a warmhearted take on the biggest northwest mystery.

- It's a Bigfoot person!

- [Knute] And turned the ominous Lynch landscape of "Twin Peaks" into a safe zone for a lovable Sasquatch.

"Sleepless in Seattle."

- That's a chick's movie.

- Saw a Seattle man, played by Tom Hanks, learning about love from of, all people, Rob Reiner at Athenian restaurant in the market.

The most magical thing in the movie isn't Hanks finding love with Meg Ryan, but Hanks living in a Lake Union houseboat, far beyond his means.

The most definitive Seattle movie of the era, perhaps ever, is "Singles".

A kind of "Friends" meets grunge film about young adults in the early nineties, living cheap in Seattle.

Matt Dillon's band Citizen Dick is played by Pearl Jammers.

The movie is also jammed with every Seattle cliche: coffee, flannel, mosh pits, one of the lead characters is even a high speed transit advocate.

- There is almost no need to leave the house.

- Any dark side the city or the grunge scene might have had is steamrolled by the vibe of 20-something love.

The 1999 teen flick "10 Things I Hate About You" was ostensibly set in a Seattle high school, though the school used was Tacoma's magnificent Stadium High.

Teen angst and the quest for freedom ring loudly for many non-Boomers in these movies.

- Mr. Stratford, it's just a party.

- And hell is just a sauna.

- Seattle was no longer a dumpy port town or a crime scene, but a setting for coming of age fantasies.

Seattle Nice outlasted Noir, apparently.

Nowadays, Seattle has been largely bypassed by Hollywood.

Tinseltown has found a town that makes a better Seattle.

Vancouver, BC, is now a regular stand-in for the Emerald City.

That's Hollywood.

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