Want to sleep in the same bed as Scarlett Johansson?
As the cottage used in 'Withnail & I' goes on sale, Joe O'Shea suggests some locations where you can live like film stars -- from Amelie's Parisian cafe to Harry Potter's castle
Scarlett Johansson
It's the perfect rural hideaway for anybody who has ever 'gone on holiday by mistake'. Only briefly occupied by two struggling actors and featuring plenty of local colour (in the shape of homicidal poachers and dipso publicans) this isolated farmhouse in the wilds of Cumbria has only just come to the market.
The ramshackle 18th-century slate and stone house is what estate agents like to call 'a dream project for the DIY enthusiast'.
But for fans of the cult movie Withnail & I, Sleddale Hall near Shap in the Lake District represents movie location nirvana.
The lonely farmstead, called Crow's Crag in Bruce Robinson's adored 1987 movie, provided the exterior locations as two struggling, substance-abusing actors (played by Paul McGann and Richard E Grant) fled their dissolute lives in Sixties' London.
Lent to them by Uncle Monty, who later turns up as an uninvited guest with lustful designs, Crow's Crag is the scene of many of the memorable moments in the cult movie.
After Withnail explains to the local farmer that "we've gone on holiday by mistake", they are menaced with eels by a sinister poacher called Jake and struggle to get a fire going with a solitary twig.
"Warm up?" observes Withnail as he sits in the clammy cottage kitchen. "We may as well sit round this cigarette. This is ridiculous. We'll be found dead in here next spring."
It's hardly a ringing endorsement for the farmhouse as a cosy country getaway, especially as Sleddale Hall has been empty for over two decades, is two miles from the nearest paved road and is in very poor condition. But the farmhouse is expected to raise around £145,000 when it goes under the hammer at the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, London, on February 16.
And estate agents Savills are hoping the property's movie past could tempt a special type of buyer to buck recent trends and pay top dollar.
"Withnail is an iconic film and there may be a few eccentrics out there who would be interested in owning a piece of film history," says Paul Mooney, director of Savills.
Buying Sleddale Hall would certainly be the ultimate purchase for a fan of the classic movie. But if you are a movie or TV fanatic who doesn't happen to have the cash to splash on a famous location right now, you can still put yourself in the frame for the price of a plane ticket.
Ranging from the cool to the very kitsch, the famous locations you can visit include:
- The Park Hyatt, Tokyo
It's the hotel where Bill Murray tries to work his way through a sleep-deprived, midlife crisis with the help of Scarlett Johansson in Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation.
The movie was almost entirely shot in Tokyo's two loudest and hippest districts, Shinjuku and Shibuya. And the Park Hyatt, with its famous and pricey top-floor New York Bar, provided the backdrop for Bob and Charlotte's low-key flirting.
Occupying the 14 top floors of a 52-storey skyscraper, the Park Hyatt Tokyo is in the heart of neon-lit Shinjuku. The bar is on the 52nd floor and offers incredible views of the neon-lit Tokyo skyline as a jazz quartet plays in the background.
But budget travellers beware, there is a €20 cover charge and the cheapest bottle of beer will set you back around €10.
Lost In Translation fans who want to do it all should consider the hotel's 'Tokyo Escape Package', which includes a one-night stay, access to the hotel's spa and training facilities (also featured in the movie) and a free cocktail in the New York Bar for €480.
Alternatively, you could stay in one of the many, relatively cheap hotels in the Shinjuku district and still sample the area's incredible shopping and nightlife.
- The 'Harry Potter Castle', Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, England
Historic Alnwick Castle, 30 miles north of Newcastle, provided the locations for much of the first two Harry Potter movies.
The Great Hall stood in as a dining hall for Harry and his fellow students and the enclosed outer Bailey hosted a Quidditch match in The Philosopher's Stone.
The castle also provided the locations for costume drama classics such as 1998's Elizabeth and 1991's Robin Hood, Prince Of Thieves.
Alnwick is open to the public from April 1-October 30, is relatively cheap and easy to reach from Ireland and represents heaven on earth for all Harry Potter fans.
- The Quiet Man cottage, Cong, Co Mayo
It may lack the neon-lit, Bladerunner-style backdrops of Tokyo, but the Quiet Man Cottage Museum in Cong, Co Mayo, does play on chocolate box charm and innocence of bygone Irish days, as seen in the much-loved John Ford classic.
The renovated homestead is situated right in the middle of the locations used for the 1951 movie starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, and just about every Irish actor of the time.
The ground floor has been designed as an exact replica of 'White-o-Mornin' Cottage, where The Duke pulls O'Hara into his arms as a wild wind gusts through the open half door.
Local movie enthusiasts have made painstaking efforts to ensure all the furnishings, artefacts and costumes are authentic reproductions, right down to Mary Kate's four-poster bed.
Like the movie itself, The Quiet Man cottage may be a little kitsch, but there's no denying the charm.
- Amelie's CafE, Montmartre, Paris.
Have a pastis in the charming cafe where the eponymous star of the much-loved 2001 movie (played by Audrey Tautou) got involved in her neighbours' romances.
You'll find Amelie's apartment at 56 Rue des Trois Freres (just follow the crowd of the film's fans). And then follow them on to the Cafe des Deux Moulins at 15 Rue Lepic in Montmartre.
The now extremely popular cafe was sold last year, but the new owner has agreed to make no changes to it (and why would he, as long as the film fans keep coming?).
- The Genco Olive Oil Co, Little Italy, New York
Download Nino Rota's Godfather soundtrack to your iPod and take a stroll along Mott Street in the heart of Little Italy the next time you are in New York.
The fourth floor of an old loft building at 128 Mott Street was the location for the Genco Olive Oil Co, the front company for Don Corleone's nefarious operations.
And the exteriors of this address were used for the scene where Don Vito (Marlon Brando) emerges from his office, is ambushed and collapses against a fruit stand.
And once you are finished recreating that scene and annoying the local fruit vendors, take the 6 Subway to Spring Street Station and walk east two blocks to Old St Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street, the location for the climactic christening scene.
Francis Ford Coppola drafted in a real bishop to perform the ceremony and members of his own family were used as extras.
Little Italy, and especially Mott Street, also feature in many of the flashback scenes in Godfather II, including the sequence where a young Vito (Robert De Niro) stalks the neighbourhood Godfather through streets thronged with religious festival-goers.
- Rick's CafE, Casablanca
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, of course, never made it to Morocco in 1942 and the classic love story was shot on studio backlots in Los Angeles.
But if you do find yourself in Casablanca and don't mind a bit of stagey, kitsch recreation, you can visit Rick's American cafe.
Only recently opened, it stands at 248 Boulevard Sour Jdidc in a renovated riad, or traditional town house, against the old wall of Casablanca's whitewashed medina and opposite the city's bustling but unglamorous Atlantic port.
The interiors are modelled closely on the movie set, the piano plays As Time Goes By and the proprietor, a Madame Kriger, will even say "Here's looking at you, kid" as a waiter in fez and baggy pantaloons serves up a pricey Manhattan.
Strictly for hopeless romantics and the ironic, so-bad-it's-cool, crowd.
