Early scenes of the film, which was based on real life events, show Rome in the 1970s as young John strolls the crowded streets to piazza Navona, the Fountain of the Four Rivers at its centre. Not long after, he is kidnapped and forced into a van in piazza di Porta Maggiore, the Aurelian walls in the background.
In the flashback recounting the Getty family’s arrival in Rome, the children stare in fascination at the Colosseum as their car circles it. They join the patriarch in an elegant house with a garden, actually Villa Wolkonsky, the official residence of Great Britain’s ambassador to Italy, whose 11 hectares stretch out over the Esquiline Hill.
The older Getty tells his grandson about his glorious exploits amidst the antiquities of Trajan’s Forum, part of the open-air museum of the Fori Imperiali, and by the canopo (pool) of Villa Adriana in Tivoli.
Palazzo Fontana, in the Talenti neighbourhood, provided the location for Getty Oil, standing in for San Francisco in the film. Gail, John’s mother, heads off to sell a small ancient statue in a building that is actually the Capitoline Museums in piazza del Campidoglio, visible when she leaves hurriedly. Gail’s exit from Fiumicino airport was shot in the back wing of Palazzo dei Congressi in EUR, whose windows overlook viale della Pittura.
John’s imprisonment was filmed not far from Rome in the hills of Lake Bracciano where farmhouses and abandoned buildings in the woods provided the kidnappers’ hideout in Calabria. Desperate to stay alive, a terrified John escapes, racing through the alleys of the historical centre of Bracciano, where the Odescalchi Castle can be glimpsed in one shot.
Early scenes of the film, which was based on real life events, show Rome in the 1970s as young John strolls the crowded streets to piazza Navona, the Fountain of the Four Rivers at its centre. Not long after, he is kidnapped and forced into a van in piazza di Porta Maggiore, the Aurelian walls in the background.
In the flashback recounting the Getty family’s arrival in Rome, the children stare in fascination at the Colosseum as their car circles it. They join the patriarch in an elegant house with a garden, actually Villa Wolkonsky, the official residence of Great Britain’s ambassador to Italy, whose 11 hectares stretch out over the Esquiline Hill.
The older Getty tells his grandson about his glorious exploits amidst the antiquities of Trajan’s Forum, part of the open-air museum of the Fori Imperiali, and by the canopo (pool) of Villa Adriana in Tivoli.
Palazzo Fontana, in the Talenti neighbourhood, provided the location for Getty Oil, standing in for San Francisco in the film. Gail, John’s mother, heads off to sell a small ancient statue in a building that is actually the Capitoline Museums in piazza del Campidoglio, visible when she leaves hurriedly. Gail’s exit from Fiumicino airport was shot in the back wing of Palazzo dei Congressi in EUR, whose windows overlook viale della Pittura.
John’s imprisonment was filmed not far from Rome in the hills of Lake Bracciano where farmhouses and abandoned buildings in the woods provided the kidnappers’ hideout in Calabria. Desperate to stay alive, a terrified John escapes, racing through the alleys of the historical centre of Bracciano, where the Odescalchi Castle can be glimpsed in one shot.
Imperative Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, TriStar Productions, RedRum Films
In 1973, the sixteen-year-old grandson of petroleum magnate John Paul Getty is kidnapped in Rome by a group of criminals from Calabria, but with his grandfather unwilling to pay a ransom, young John’s life is in danger.
