A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : ON LOCATION : Maybe He’ll Undisappear for the Premiere

Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson don’t hit town until the middle of the month to start shooting “Hoffa,” the $40-million-plus life story of Teamster leader and mob-associate Jimmy Hoffa. But production crews have been busy for months in Pittsburgh. They’ve already built the facade of a union hall in a church parking lot and created a forest and a dirt road in an armory.

About half of the movie will be shot in and about Pittsburgh, which landed the movie mainly because you can’t find 1930s Detroit in Detroit anymore but can find it well-preserved all around Pittsburgh. DeVito, who is also the film’s director, popped into town last weekend to scout an H.J. Heinz Co. railroad yard, which became a last-minute location choice after the original Chicago location fell through at the last minute.

According to a Pittsburgher who has read the closely guarded David Mamet script, DeVito is in almost every scene as Hoffa’s right-hand henchman. The script begins in 1935 with Hoffa (Nicholson) getting truck-driver DeVito to join the Teamsters and ends with Hoffa being shot and disappearing in 1975. Mamet doesn’t offer a guess as to where Hoffa’s body resides.

Scribbled on the cover of the Hoffa screenplay: “This script is not to be copied or circulated. To do so will result in very unpleasant repercussions involving Italians from New Jersey.” It was signed “D.D.”