Catalina Island’s Place in Hollywood History

Catalina Island has been used as a filming location for over 500 motion pictures, documentaries, television programs and commercials during the past 90 years. Around 300 of those 500 projects were motion picture productions. Starting as early as 1911, and continuing strongly through the silent-film years and the arrival of sound in movies, more than 225 films were shot on Catalina Island.

Across that legacy, Catalina Island has stood in for the coast of North Africa, Tahiti, the American Frontier, the lost continent of Atlantis, and even the waters associated with the famous mechanical shark from Jaws. Santa Catalina Island occupies a distinctive role in film history as Hollywood’s exotic back lot.

During the 16 years of silent-film production, celebrated directors and actors regularly came to the Island and created several classic films, including Treasure Island (1918), Male & Female (1919), Ten Commandments (1923), Ben Hur (1925), Old Ironsides (1926) and The Black Pirate (1926). D.W. Griffith was among the earliest directors to shoot there. His feature Man’s Genesis was filmed on Catalina Island in 1912. After Griffith, many major studios began using the Island as a cinematic backdrop, including Universal Studios, Lasky Film Corporation, Paramount, Fox, Metro-Goldwyn, and United Artists.

The reason so many production companies came to Catalina Island during that era was straightforward. Catalina Island offered both remarkable natural scenery and practical access. Crews, equipment, and sets could be transported by barge, while the broad, undeveloped mountains and beaches could be made to resemble nearly anywhere in the world.

Catalina Island was especially adaptable. In many movies shot there, identifying the precise filming site requires a sharp eye because productions used locations throughout the Island. Avalon, Little Harbor and the Isthmus (Two Harbors) were the locations most often selected. So many films were made at the Isthmus that it became known as the Isthmus Movie Colony. Visitors walking through Two Harbors today can picture tall ships battling in Catalina Harbor or the Tahitian Village built for Mutiny on the Bounty. Many of the non-native palm trees still found at the Isthmus were planted by film production companies.

Another enduring result of this filmmaking past was the arrival of the North American Bison on Catalina Island. The bison were brought to Catalina Island for The Vanishing American, the film adaptation of Zane Grey’s classic novel, released by the Lasky Film Corporation in 1925. Yet when viewing the film, it does not appear to have been shot on Catalina Island. The Island footage may have been removed during editing, but a herd of North American Bison has nevertheless roamed Catalina’s hills since December of 1924.

When sound came to motion pictures, it opened a new chapter for both Hollywood and Catalina Island. The Island remained an important location for many of Hollywood’s top filmmakers. One of the first talkie movies made on the Island was Condemned, starring Ronald Colman in 1929. In the years that followed, classic films such as Island of Lost Souls (1932), Rain (1932), Treasure Island (1933), Captain Blood (1935), and Captains Courageous (1937) were filmed there. The amount of filming during this period brought many of Hollywood’s screen favorites to experience the appeal of Santa Catalina.

Celebrity Sightings

Numerous well-known actors and celebrities were seen on Catalina Island and offshore aboard grand yachts. The Hotel St. Catherine published a weekly local newspaper column titled Lobbying at the Hotel St.Catherine. In that column, Harry Grattan, proprietor of the St. Catherine’s gift shop, shared reports of celebrity sightings. Frequent visitors included Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Joe Schenck, Betty Grable, Norma Shearer, Irving Thalberg, Richard Arlen and Johnny Weismuller.

During the 1930s, many celebrities and actors spent time working and relaxing on Catalina Island. Some built lasting attachments to the Island and the waters around it. Charlie Chaplin and his wife Paulette Goddard often visited and enjoyed fishing for marlin and tuna near the Island. James Cagney and his wife were known to anchor their yacht Marian in Descanso Bay. The source page also includes an attributed remark from Cecil B. De Mille in The Catalina Islander; the attributed voice is Cecil B. De Mille, a prominent film director associated with at least three pictures on Catalina Island, and the theme is Catalina as an inspiring setting for creative work.

World War II

The beginning of World War II brought major changes to both Catalina Island and Hollywood. Catalina Island was closed to tourism, and filming on the Island was put on hold. After World War II, production activity resumed, though advances in private-sector aviation made it easier to travel to faraway settings instead of recreating them on Catalina Island. As a result, the Island was used less often for motion picture productions.

Filming on Catalina Island did not end, however. The 1950s brought the rise of television, and a new wave of producers and directors again recognized the Island as an exotic yet convenient location. Since 1950, hundreds of commercials, television programs and music videos have been shot on Catalina Island, along with countless catalogs and magazine shoots.

Although the film industry uses Catalina Island less than it once did, production has continued. Many memorable projects from the last fifty years have been filmed on the Island, including The Glassbottom Boat (1966), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1974), MacArthur (1977), Waterworld (1995), Multiplicity (1995), Apollo 13 (1995), and Amistad (1997). Other films, including The Hunt for Red October (1990), Suicide Kings (1997) and The Thin Red Line (1998), were partially filmed off the coast of Catalina Island. Moviegoers may occasionally notice Catalina on the horizon, such as in Step Brothers (2008), which also used aerial shots of Catalina Island, as did Disney’s Pearl Harbor (2001).

Catalina Island and Hollywood filmmakers have shared a distinctive connection for almost a century. The Island has appeared on the silver screen hundreds of times and has been reshaped into many different places. Today, it waits for the next cast and crew to add another production to its long record of memorable movies filmed along its shores.

A complete list of movies filmed on Catalina Island is available.

To honor Catalina Island’s Hollywood history roots, two film events take place each year. The Catalina Island Museum for Art & History presents the Silent Film Benefit each May, featuring a silent film with live music accompaniment. The four-day Catalina Film Festival is held each September.

For those interested in filming on Catalina, a Catalina Film and Photoshoot Handbook is available.