With movies like "Marshall" and "The Purge Filming in Buffalo, the Queen City has become a hotbed of activity in the Film Community, but back in 1983, when director Barry Levinson brought filming of "The Natural" to Western New York, Buffalo was a relative unknown in the film industry.
"No one ever thought about Buffalo." Said Levinson. "It was sort of off the grid."
Levinson made his return to Buffalo Saturday night, when Turner Classic Movies brought a special TCM Backlot event to the North Park Theater after Buffalo won a national contest.
TCM Backlot host Ben Mankiewicz joined Levinson on the trip and says his first trip to Buffalo has left a lasting impression
"It's a beautiful city. The architecture here is stunning. The people here are so friendly I feel like they're Canadian."
And it's that iconic architecture that Levinson says gives Buffalo a leg up on the competition when it comes to filming destinations.
"the architecture here, of the twentys and thirtys, that you can shoot in a lot of these buildings.... that doesn't exist elsewhere."
