What to Know
- "Lights, Camera, Action! Hollywood Magic in Pasadena" opens at the Pasadena Museum of History on June 8; the exhibition will be on view through Feb. 9, 2025
- A Sunday, June 9 birthday party in honor of Pasadena's 138th birthday launches the exhibition; the free event will feature cake, trivia contests, and more
- While not related to the Pasadena Museum of History event, the fabled Castle Green in Old Pasadena will open for a rare tour on June 9; a ticket is $50
You don't need a flying DeLorean outfitted with a flux capacitor and a digital chronometer to reach the Crown City; you can get to Pasadena via a few major freeways, the Colorado Street Bridge, or the Metro A Line train, if you like.
But if you do happen to have a futuristic car, the kind of time-traveling machine once owned by Doc Brown of "Back to the Future," you may want to steer it to Pasadena on Sunday, June 9.
True, Hill Valley is the setting of the 1985 film phenomenon, but The Gamble House in Pasadena famously served as the location for Doc Brown's home.
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And just across the street and down a bit from the landmark?
It's the Pasadena Museum of History, where a new exhibition called "Lights, Camera, Action! Hollywood Magic in Pasadena" is opening on June 8.
To help launch this location-laden show, which will be on view through early February 2025, there is a free event on June 9: A birthday party, complete with a cake-cutting helmed by Mayor Victor M. Gordo, in honor of Pasadena's 138th birthday.
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Trivia contests, opportunities to make a "movie-inspired hat or tiara," chances to learn old-school dance steps, and screenings of way-back films shot on the museum's property are part of the afternoon celebration.
Nearby — well, just a few minutes away, by car, in Old Pasadena — another cinematic offering will flower, also on June 9: A rare tour of Castle Green, a striking structure that rose in the late 1800s.
This stand-out structure — the former hotel is an eye-catching, straight-from-a-storybook fantasia just south of Colorado Boulevard on Raymond Avenue — is no longer a hotel but rather home to several private residences.
That means that calling upon this dramatic landmark isn't usually possible unless the castle (and it really and truly feels like a castle) welcomes visitors for a look inside.
And while Castle Green's cinematic history won't necessarily be the focus, film fans may want to check out the spaces where great movies like "The Sting" and "The Prestige" were filmed.
A ticket is $50 and, like all Castle Green tours, is expected to sell out.
