Film buffs may be surprised to discover that Bermuda has an indirect link to The Wizard of Oz, the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland and a host of memorable, magical characters. It is Denslow's Island.
The privately owned island is named after W. W. Denslow, who created the original illustrations for the book on which the movie is based, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum, and thus with his pen gave form to many of the characters depicted on the screen. Denslow lived in Bermuda at the turn of the century. The island, however, despite its famous association, is off limits to visitors.
Several films were shot in and around Bermuda. The most famous is The Deep (1977) starring Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, Robert Shaw, and Lou Gossett -- a visually arresting movie about a lost treasure and drugs and, of course, scuba diving off the island's coast. For one of the scenes, a lighthouse near the Grotto Bay Beach Hotel and Tennis Club was accommodatingly blown up.
A movie that was filmed partly in Bermuda is Chapter Two (1979), with James Caan and Marsha Mason. Based on the successful Broadway play by Neil Simon, it is the story of a playwright's bumpy romance soon after the death of his wife. The Bermuda scenes were shot at Marley Beach Cottage.
