Anyway, here is the outside of the hotel, I'll show some shots from the interior in the next post so as not to crowd this post too much.
I did hear a rumour on a Facebook group that the film crew installed the revolving door specifically for the film and then uninstalled it again once filming ended. If anyone can confirm it would be an interesting little tidbit - especially as the revolving door is only really involved in one or two on screen gags. Anyway, looking at this Streetview grab below you can see that buildings next door to the hotel are the same as they were back in 1978 but the Caltex petrol station has gone (though I don't know when).
Incidentally, there was a recent newspaper report that the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group (that owns the Excelsior and is itself part of the huge massive Jardine Matheson Group) had recently had the hotel valued in a view to redevelopment. It caused rather a panic because this hotel is a very famous and familiar part of the HK harbourfront but the company denied it had any intention of selling the land. All is calm at the moment but in HK these days there doesn't seem to be any smoke without fire. Time will tell.
4 comments:
The Caltex station is still there, it's just got a different logo these days. :-) It's the one with the white star logo, behind the construction. From the shape of the roof on Street View, I'd say it's the same canopy as when this film was made, but the archive shows the gas station having been closed in mid-2009 and everything under the canopy renovated.
The construction in the foreground was a Shell station next door to the Caltex one, and Street View suggests that was closed some time between July 2009 and February 2011. And again, looking at the shape of the canopy in the July 2009 Street View, I'd say that was the same one as in 1978, although the building beneath it was different. (It seems to have had a small shop facing onto the street in the 1970s, but there was just a granite wall there by the late 2000s, and the shop had moved further under the canopy.)
aha, well spotted, I thought it was one and the same but yes, it is indeed the Shell station that has gone and not the Caltex one.
Then revolving door at the entrance of The Excelsior was there when it opened and stayed for a long time. I think it's gone now as it went out of fashion some time ago.
Thanks for confirming, Hiram. It did seem a bit extravagant to install a revolving door just for a couple of gags, so it's good to know it was the original entrance.
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