A country on the edge…..
The “Million Dollar Hotel” changed the called to Frontier Hotel.
Everyone knows the story, key inspirations to make this movie was U2 Bonos legendary roof top video.
“The Million Dollar” owes its genesis to the rooftop of the once-magnificent hotel that would become the film’s genesis.
Built in 1917, the lodging, now called the Frontier Hotel, was in fact the titular Million Dollar Hotel and the graceful, wrought iron sign bearing that title still sprawls on the top of the building. Producer and story co-creator Bono, U2, visited this rooftop. Eventually, it became the location for the video of the group’s song Where The Streets Have No Name.
He used used to spend a lot of time in downtown Los Angeles and knew the area very well. He went to the roof when the photographer Anton Corbijn brought him there to take photographs. Hard to believe that it was called The Million Dollar Hotel. That’s the thing about America, isn’t it? The poetry of the place names. It seemed like the name of a book or a play or a movie already, just waiting to be written. If you go to a certain point on the roof, there is about a ten-foot jump to the other building.
Lets make a jump, the movie’s story began to percolate in Bonos imagination. He had this play in his head and called it “The Million Dollar Hotel”, about a character who tried to jump off the roof to get to the other side. He put together a treatment, which he developed further and from that Bono wrote the first draft of the screenplay.
We enjoyed the Hotel Frontier and get a bit of the tragic atmosphere Bono encountered in downtown Los Angeles in the 80’s.
Photo: Tom Kurth
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