There's reel life - and real life

By Alan J. Heavens
Inquirer Real Estate Writer

A good first impression is key to a successful real estate deal.

If a house were in desperate need of paint, would you give it a second look? If a neighborhood were dotted with rusting cars parked in the front yards, would you be eager to live there?

Probably not.

Say you're relocating to Philadelphia. You turn on the TV, and you watch, in succession, Hack, Rocky (the first one), Witness, Private Benjamin, The Philadelphia Story, and Blow Out.

What kind of impression would you come away with?

CBS's Hack offers a few homey neighborhood views, but most of what you see is either Center City glitz or dangerously seedy.

"I watch it because it's about Philadelphia, and David Morse is wonderful," said Bari Shor, an agent with Prudential Fox & Roach in Center City. "But it is rather dark."

Chris Artur, owner of Artur Real Estate in the city's Mayfair neighborhood, said a lot of what occurs in Hack happens at night, "because that's what makes good television. You wouldn't watch TV or movies if everything was nice and there was no action."

Ah, but would he ride in Morse's cab?

"Probably not," Artur said. "Something bad always seems to happen when people get into his cab."

"Hack is about crime, and we obviously don't want to focus on that," said Marshal Granor, principal in Granor Price Homes in Horsham. Instead, he would suggest Home of Freedom, the film that opens the program at the Tuttleman IMAX Theater at the Franklin Institute.

Rocky offers a choice of views: the Italian Market, the docks, the Art Museum steps. Even 27 years after it was made, it still is for many people the movie that symbolizes the spirit of Philadelphia.

Witness and Blow Out feature grisly murders that could make you avoid the bathrooms at 30th Street Station. The Philadelphia Story and Private Benjamin offer cliches of the Main Line: that only the rich can afford to live there.

"But while I've always loved The Philadelphia Story, you have to see it as a period piece out of the 1930s," Shor said. "Life isn't like that anymore - if it ever was."

Many out-of-towners see in Philadelphia a blend of the good times of American Bandstand, the inspirational qualities of Rocky, and the sophistication of The Philadelphia Story, period piece or not.

Jon Quist, a real estate agent in Tucson, Ariz., said he recognized that "Rocky Balboa isn't a real person." But the Philadelphia portrayed in the movies was pretty much what he found when he visited here, he said.

"It was old, historic, with East Coast-type neighborhoods, lush landscaping, and traditional-style golf courses," Quist said.