On Taking a Wild Ride Through an Illusion of an Illusion

Having only one day left, we had to choose between Disney’s Magic Kingdom and the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park. We decided on the studios, since the Magic Kingdom was evidently a duplicate of Disneyland West.

The park supposedly takes us behind the scenes, to show us how movies are made. You enter through a mock-up of Hollywood Boulevard, ending in a replica of the Chinese Theater, complete with autographed forecourt.

As one might expect, Disney goes overboard for authenticity. A shapely young woman, overdressed and over-painted, made overtures to me as we strolled past her bench. Or maybe I only imagined she was a prop. Maybe she was just another tourist looking for an older man.

In the theater we saw a film of clips from old movies. Each image was on the screen for only a second or so, but so deeply are those images burned into our consciousness that every one was instantly recognizable--although the next one flashed past before we could even think of the movie’s name.

Burt Lancaster kissing the captain’s wife on the beach in “From Here to Eternity” . . . Gary Cooper drawing in “High Noon” . . . Bette Davis saying: “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” (Wasn’t that in “All About Eve”?)

We decided to take the “Star Tour” ride despite the posted warning that people with heart, neck or back problems, or who were pregnant, should not go. “Well,” I told my wife, “I’m not pregnant--so I have a 25% chance of surviving. Let’s go.”

Our car had no more than taken off through space than I began to think I had made a mistake. We lurched, we zoomed, we plunged. We flew through a curtain of missiles fired from other spacecraft, we weathered a shower of asteroids, we skimmed over a city, dodging skyscrapers, we dived through a twisting canyon. I grabbed at the arm rest only to find that my wife’s hand was already there.

As theme park rides go, it was the scariest yet.

We chose not to see the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” More my style was the “Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.”

The show was staged in a large amphitheater. Indiana Jones was a stunt man who was shot at, bombed and attacked by spears that were thrust up through the floor. In the course of the show he dispatched a whole platoon of Nazis, meanwhile rescuing his blond inamorata from a fate worse than death. A Nazi truck was overturned and burst into flame. The stage was such a shambles that I understood why there was 45 minutes between shows. They had to clean up the damage and reset all the explosives.

I bet it was at least as much fun as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

A behind-the-scenes tour purported to show how movies are made, with props, illusions and artificial catastrophes. Almost as scary as Star Wars was Catastrophe Canyon. Our car entered a rocky canyon of the kind found in New Mexico, and was subjected to a series of disasters. An earthquake shook the canyon and our car. Waves of water cascaded down into the canyon, splashing within an inch of the open window beside which my wife sat. A truck in the canyon above us blew up. I was glad to get out.

A shuttle tour took us down streets of false-front mansions, some of which looked familiar. In the distance we could see the New York skyline, including the Empire State Building. It was only when we drew close that we could see that the realistic buildings had been painted on wooden cutouts. Trompe l’oeil . But only the tower of the Empire State Building was painted on. It was held up by a wooden scaffold.

We also visited the Water Effects Tank, where miniature naval vessels fired at one another and a typhoon came up. I wondered how many war movies I’d seen had been shot in just such a tank.

Eating of course is the most important part of any theme park excursion. We considered lunching at the Hollywood Brown Derby and the Hollywood and Vine Cafeteria but decided on the Disney-MGM Studios Commissary Restaurant. It was very much like eating in a studio commissary, except that we didn’t see any stars, not even Harrison Ford’s double.

We drove our rented car that afternoon to Orlando Airport, which is one of the most handsome I have seen, and caught a Delta flight for Los Angeles. Our in-flight movie was “Doc Hollywood,” a charming romantic comedy which, I was sure, was mostly illusory.

I was glad to be home, where Hollywood Boulevard is not a false front but a different kind of illusion altogether.