A couple of days ago Paul Schrader suggested the idea of a movie-themed hotel. Some kind of flush establishment, he meant, that would offer exact duplicates of famous hotel rooms from classic films — the climatic 2001 hotel suite, The Shining‘s room 237, the bare-bones Phoenix hotel room where Marion Crane and Sam Loomis met for a lunch-hour quickie, “cabin” 1 at the Bates Motel, Eve Kendall‘s room at Chicago’s Ambassador East, etc.
A cool notion, Schrader concluded. Then he mentioned that he googled it and found that “someone else already had the same idea.”
Overlook Hotel’s room 237.
Actually, not quite. The movie-themed hotel suites profiled in Claire Trageser‘s 2.14.18 Travel & Leisure article (“These Movie-themed Hotel Rooms Will Bring Your Favorite Fantasy to Life“) were actually created for the rube tourist crowd. She describes rooms inspired by Talledega Nights, Star Trek and Spongebob Squarepants. She also describes some Harry Potter wizard chambers and Lord Vader‘s quarters (with a kid’s bunk bed?). You wouldn’t have to be an Okie from Muskogee to enjoy one of these abodes, but it would probably help.
In short, a serious film-theme hotel doesn’t exist.
If and when it ever happens, it should be located in the Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Ave. area. Hollywood Elsewhere would gladly consult on the particulars for a reasonable month-to-month fee. But it probably won’t happen because while the boobs may like movie-themed rooms, their prime concern is staying somewhere slick and swanky, and sometimes the concept would argue with that.
Which would mean no Touch of Evil motel room (i.e., the one in which poor Janet Leigh is taunted and almost raped by gang members) and no Psycho rooms (either the Bates motel or the Phoenix flophouse). And no replica of the cheap Times Square hotel where Jon Voight stayed until his money ran out. And no Judy Barton hotel room from Vertigo with green neon glaring through the window. Only deluxe accommodations!
My first choice as a visitor would be the Overlook Hotel’s room 237. The eerie French Chateau suite from the finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey could be fascinating, especially if they could hang a full-sized black monolith from the ceiling, right at the foot of the king-sized bed. I’d also be delighted to stay in a replica of George Kaplan‘s Plaza Hotel room from North by Northwest, complete with dandruff shampoo in the bathroom cabinet.
If I was consulting I would not only prioritize a Touch of Evil and a Bates Motel room, but insist that both be painted and decorated in gray monochrome tones. I would also demand that the door to the bathroom of the Jack and Wendy Torrance suite at the Overlook would have to be partially bashed in and splintered.
