The Woman In Red - Tryst, Interrupted
Teddy almost misses TWA’s L-1011 flight to Los Angeles but gets the ramp truck to head back as the exit door re-opens for him. As if. (In return for its cooperation with the filmmakers TWA gets lots of exposure in the airport scenes that follow).
Then … Unfortunately for Teddy once in the air the flight is diverted to San Diego due to fog in L.A. On arrival he sits in the lounge, musing about Didi and Charlotte, two women waiting for him in the middle of the night. But was this scene filmed at San Diego airport? (No, it was not - read on).
… in 1977 … CitySleuth discovered that the same airport lounge had been filmed 7 years earlier in a scene in the Mel Brook’s comedy High Anxiety as evidenced by the same red pin-striped carpet, seats, circular columns, quad elevated flight status screens, cone-shaped cigarette ashtrays and silver lamp arrays.
When Mel Brooks exits the terminal in High Anxiety the address on the window - 300 World Way - is that of TWA’s Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport. This then was the location used for Teddy’s ‘San Diego’ scene.
… a vintage photo … This c. 1970 photograph shows TWA Terminal 3 as it still was when The Woman In Red was filmed.
… and Now, the Terminal, still addressed 300 World Way, Los Angeles, has significantly changed since then with an elevated road now servicing an expanded upper level. TWA as such disappeared when it was acquired in 2001 by American Airlines; today Terminal 3 is used primarily for Delta and Aeromexico arrivals and departures. Further changes are currently underway at LAX in preparation for the flood of 2028 Summer Olympics visitors.
Then … All is not lost though - the two wanna-be lovers, undeterred, meet again in San Francisco at Baker Street near Beach in the Marina District with the Palace of Fine Arts across the lagoon behind them.
… and Now, the impressive edifice was built for the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exposition; despite being rebuilt in concrete and steel in the 1960s and seismically retrofitted in 2009 it hasn’t changed its appearance to this day.
Alfred Hitchcock beat Gene Wilder to it - the identical view was captured in his 1958 classic Vertigo when James Stewart and Kim Novak stroll by on the Baker Street sidewalk.
In 1979 around the corner on Bay Street Malcom McDowell and Mary Steenburgen were there in Time After Time. That water spout and lamppost are still there today.