�Baby Mama:� Tina Fey�s Rittenhouse Square Apartment in Philadelphia

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Last week we took a look back at Andie MacDowell�s apartment in Green Card, and a lot of you suggested other great movie apartments you�d like to see. I was surprised by how many requests I got for the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler comedy Baby Mama. I didn�t remember much about it, so I took another look.

Fey plays Kate, a single woman in her late �30s who wants a baby and hires Angie (Poehler) as her surrogate. Her apartment is nice, neat, and perfectly decorated, like pages ripped out of a Pottery Barn catalog�at least until Angie moves in and starts sticking her gum under Kate�s reclaimed barn-wood coffee table�

The movie is set in Philadelphia but most of it was filmed in New York (with some location shots from PA). The apartment interiors were built on a soundstage in Brooklyn.

Kate lives near Rittenhouse Square, but Angie comes from South Philly.

The front lobby of Kate�s fancy, schmancy apartment:

Greg Kinnear plays Kate�s love interest, Rob. Here he is in the entrance to her apartment:

In this behind-the-scenes shot of them filming in the entry hall, you can see their marks on the floor:

The living room:

Kate discovers the wads of chewing gum stuck underneath her coffee table and isn�t pleased:

In this shot from behind the scenes you can see into the dining area off the living room:

The balcony outside the apartment, off the living room:

It was hard to get a good photo of Kate�s fabulous kitchen. Here�s one from the �making of� featurette on the DVD:

Kate has a Viking kitchen. Viking reportedly provided �a range, refrigerator, beverage center, trash compactor and dishwasher for the set.� Lucky girl!

One of my favorite features in the kitchen is this swinging door with the little porthole window:

The kitchen seems huge, especially for a one-bedroom apartment in the city. What would she do with all that storage?

Kate�s Bedroom:

After Angie moves in, she takes over the bedroom and makes Kate sleep on the sofa in the living room.

Susan Bode-Tyson was the Set Decorator. She told the SDSA: �Kate is a very buttoned-up, organized person. The set was originally mildly interesting, but when the Angie character moves in with her, you get a sense of their very different worlds. And their worlds somewhat collide.�

You can see a couple of set photos of the bedroom on the SDSA website.

Angie tries to get the baby lock off the toilet (I hate those things!):

I loved Rob�s (Greg Kinnear�s) townhouse, too, and wished we could have seen a little more of it than just the exterior and the kitchen:

The backsplash tile looks almost silver:

You guys gave me so many ideas for great movie apartments that maybe I�ll feature another one next week. Maybe When Harry Met Sally? Or Just Like Heaven?

P.S. Every day my inbox fills up with emails asking me whether I�ve featured this, that, or the other movie house. I keep a handy list with links to all of them on my TV/Movie Houses page, in alphabetical order, so if you�re looking for something, check there! 

Movie Monday: The Perfect World of Stepford, Connecticut

by HOOKEDONHOUSES on SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

The 2004 remake of The Stepford Wives starred Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick as a couple that moves to the picture-perfect suburbs of Connecticut, only to discover that things may not be as idyllic as they first appear.

The problem with this version is that it�s not sure if it wants to be scary or funny, so it�s not enough of either. The houses that the Stepford families live in are pretty impressive, though, so let�s take a closer look!

�What we were after when creating the town of Stepford, Connecticut, was a sense of the modern suburb, the McMansion suburb,� screenwriter Paul Rudnick explains. He says that you could go to Connecticut today and find 80,000 square-foot homes inhabited by a husband, wife, and one child, and there is something �both seductive and obscene about that lifestyle.�

Production Designer Jack DeGovia agrees: �It�s a lifestyle that makes no apologies for being luxurious, and the metaphor for that world is the houses that people live in, which are much too big for their lives. It�s like a library with few books.�

Filming a scene in Joanna�s foyer (from the DVD Special Features):

The interior rooms for Joanna�s house were sets built in a warehouse in Yonkers.Director Frank Oz says, �Whenever you see actors being careful not to open an exterior door too wide, you know they�re probably on a set.�

When Joanna, Walter, and their kids first arrive at their new home, it�s empty:

�The look of Stepford is defined as New Money,� Director Frank Oz says. �Everything is spanking new, perfect.�

The next morning when Joanna comes downstairs, the whole place is magically furnished and decorated:

Joanna decides to give the Stepford way of life a shot by donning an apron and cranking out more cupcakes than you can shake a stick at:

The original 1975 movie was based on a novel by Ira Levin. Katharine Ross (The Graduate) played the role of Joanna, and the movie itself was a spooky thriller. Here�s how Joanna�s house looked in the original:

Inside the house in the 1975 version, things weren�t as shiny and new as the one in the remake:

It�s also interesting to compare the kitchens then and now. We expect a lot more from our kitchens these days. In one scene we see them washing their dishes by hand (gasp!):

Her friend Bobbie sits at the kitchen table (look how realistically cluttered the countertops and table are�something you just don�t see as much of in movies today):

Things are equally cluttered in the living room�the house wasn�t magically furnished and decorated overnight in the original version:

But I digress. Back to the remake, and the perfect house Nicole Kidman lived in:

We get a look inside the study when Joanna starts frantically Googling various Stepford wives to see who they were before moving to Connecticut (surprise�they were judges, attorneys, and other high-powered career women like her!).

John Cusack was originally cast in the role of Walter Eberhardt. When he dropped out, Matthew Broderick took over. John�s sister Joan was supposed to play the role of Bobbie, but she also pulled out and Bette Midler got the part.

Joanna and Walter�s Bedroom:

Oz says that the bedroom scenes were filmed in a real house somewhere in Connecticut:

The Stepford Men�s Association:

The Stepford Men�s Club was also a set. In one scene, Roger�played by Roger Bart, who you probably remember as Creepy George from Desperate Housewives�says, �I love this space. It�s very Ralph Lauren meets Sherlock Holmes. To me it says �I have taste and a scrotum.��

I guess I should mention that if you haven�t seen the movie and don�t want anything spoiled, you might want to stop reading now.

In the DVD commentary, Oz mentions that the Rotunda was a set used in the original �Stepford Wives,� too:

Joanna finds a painting of her family in the men�s club, picturing her as a smiling, blond Stepford wife (cue the �Twilight Zone� music!):

In the next scene, Joanna looks like the image in the painting. Frank Oz says he wanted it to look like she was �floating through the grocery store.� I like how they lined the egg cartons up.

Bobbie�s House:

Before Bobbie (played by Bette Midler in a shaggy, dishwater blond wig) is turned into a Stepford wife, her house is a wreck:

Frank Oz describes Bobbie as �the anti-Stepford wife.� So when Joanna stops by to visit Bobbie a few days later and finds everything looking pristine, she knows something is up:

The interiors of Bobbie�s house were created on a soundstage in Queens.

I won�t even pretend to understand the movie�s logic. Are the wives stuck with robotic bodies now even though their brains have been restored? How does that work? They clearly wanted to give the wives a happy ending, but it was all a little strange. The original film went out on a much darker note.

We get a glimpse of the back staircase when Bobbi�s boys come thundering down them:

The various house exteriors that are shown throughout the movie were photographed in the suburbs of Connecticut. I love the back of this house where the women meet for a tea party:

Glenn Close�s character Claire asks, at the end of the movie, �Where would people never notice a town full of robots? Connecticut!�

Frank Oz has given us some great �house movies� over the years that I�ve featured before, including Death at a Funeral and one of my all-time favorites, Housesitter. And unlike some other filmmakers, he is always good about giving us some lingering shots on the rooms and then talking about the sets in the DVD commentaries. Thanks, Frank!