Eiffel Tower in popular culture

The Eiffel Tower has appeared frequently in works of fiction because of its iconic nature. Movie critic Roger Ebert has noted in his online column that no matter where in Paris a film scene is set the Eiffel Tower will be visible in the background. [ [http://www.rogerebert.com 40 Things That Only Happen in the Movies] Ebert's comment was meant in jest, but scenes in movies such as "The Longest Day" with gratuitous use of the Tower in the background lend credence to the joke.]

Major plot element

In some cases the tower is the key plot element or a significant plot element:
* 1949: In "The Man On The Eiffel Tower", the tower plays a central role, and the climax involves a climbing chase that predates the Mount Rushmore scene in "North by Northwest".
* 1951: In "The Lavender Hill Mob", models of the tower are central to the plot, and the climax takes place on the real tower.
* 1985: The James Bond film "A View to a Kill" contains a scene in the tower, including scenes in the "Jules Verne" restaurant there (filmed elsewhere), a fight on the stairway, and a BASE jump off the top of the tower. The video for the title song feature the members of Duran Duran as assassins and spies in or around the tower.
* 1985: Alistair Maclean's novel "Hostage Tower" features an audacious scheme to capture the tower and use the threat of its destruction to extort millions from the French government. The story was later made into a telemovie with the same title.
* 2007: Featured in Rush Hour 3 as the climax battle. Portions of the fight was actual footage of the famous landmark, whilst other sequences were replicated built sets.

Destruction of the tower

In a notable subtype, the action of all or part of the work centers around the real or threatened destruction of the tower.
* 1987: In "The Real Ghostbusters" episode "The Ghostbusters in Paris", it is revealed that the Eiffel Tower was a massive Containment Unit to store ghosts, long before the Ghostbusters developed present day ghostbusting equipment.
* In the 1992 episode "Tower of Power" of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Krang has a giant electromagnet, and wants to use it to pull the Technodrome from its Dimension X asteroid location by using the Eiffel Tower as an antenna. The Eiffel Tower begins to be pulled loose from its foundations and towards the dimensional portal. At the last minute, Donatello destroys the generator and the Eifel Tower falls down to the ground undamaged.
* In the 1992 episode "Rust Never Sleeps" of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Bebop and Rocksteady blast metals with Krangs "oxidizer rocket". The "oxidizer rocket" was originally planned by Krang to use to send the Technodrome to Earth, and when it failed, Krang thinks that it can be used by threatening to rust metal if the people don't surrender to Krang and Shredder. Even the Eiffel Tower gets blasted, and begins to collapse from rust. In the end, Donatello reverses Krangs device to turn the metals back to normal.
* 1995: In the real-time strategy game of "Command & Conquer", the tower is one of four selectable targets for the Global Defense Initiative's hijacked Ion Cannon weapon, during the ending sequence of the Brotherhood of Nod campaign.
* 1996: The tower appears in the Paris level in the PlayStation game "Twisted Metal 2". The tower can be blown up using a remote bomb and falls as a bridge to other buildings.
* 1999: In the French Sentai amateur series "France Five", the destruction of the tower in the main objective of the evil empire Lexos, as it generates a barrier around the planet that keeps it from sending armies en masse.
* 2004: In "", Kamacuras attacks the tower.
* 2004: In "", a rocket blows up the tower, and it crushes the Arc de Triomphe.
* 2008: The History Channel's "Life After People" features the collapse of the tower around 200 years after the disappearance of humans due to corrosion .
* 2008: in the YouTube short film "France-Man 2", the villian "Der Sour Kraut" blows up the tower in an effort to conquer France

Destruction of the city, or the world

In another notable sub-type, the tower and its destruction is used as a symbol of the real or threatened destruction of the city, or the world.
*1953: In "The War of the Worlds",the tower and most (if not all) of Paris is destroyed by the martian attack. The tower can be seen in ruin at the end of the film depicting the death of the martians.
* 1980: In "Superman II", the tower (and the rest of Paris) are almost blown up by a terrorist nuclear bomb, and Lois Lane almost plunges to her death under its elevator. In the original 1977 script, one of the 3 Supervillains, Non, was originally supposed to destroy the tower with his heat vision.
* 1996: The tower can be seen on TV in "Independence Day".
* 1996: In "Mars Attacks!", the tower is Melted/destroyed by Martians.
* 1998: The tower, along with Paris, is destroyed by a meteorite in "Armageddon".
* 2006 The Eiffel Tower is destroyed along with numerous other landmarks in .
* 2007 The movie 28 Weeks Later ends with people infected with the fictional Rage Virus heading towards the Eiffel Tower.+0

Embodiment of Paris

In others, the tower is used as an embodiment of Paris, the symbol of the city, to set the scene for a film or other work centered on the city.
* 1923: René Clair's "Paris qui dort" starts, ends and has many scenes on the tower.
* 1939: In "Ninotchka" an involved flirtation takes place around a discussion of finding the Eiffel Tower around the 26 minute time point.
* 1958: At the beginning of Francois Truffaut's "The 400 Blows", the tower is seen between Parisian apartment blocks.
* 1995: In "French Kiss", Kate misses seeing the tower several times while she wanders around Paris, but later spends several minutes rapturously watching it while on the train to Cannes (from which line it is not possible to see the tower).
* 1995: In "Forget Paris", Miki and Ellen are shown in front of the tower numerous times throughout the film.
* 2003: In "The Real World Paris" television show on the US MTV network, the tower is seen.

ymbol of Paris

In yet others, as a symbol of the city in a more peripheral way:
* 1953: At the end of "The War of the Worlds", the tower is seen destroyed.
* 1965: At the end of the Blake Edwards' "The Great Race", [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059243/] starring Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, the tower is blown up by a misfired cannon shot from Professor Fate's car.
* 1967: In The Beatles song, 'I Am the Walrus', a character called 'Semolina Pilchard' climbs the tower.
* 1968–2001: A miniature tower is the home of the puppet "Grandpere" in "Mister Rogers'" Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
* 1970: The tower is shown in the classic animated film "The Aristocats".
* 1979: In the Doctor Who serial City of Death, several scenes were filmed at the Tower, including the final scene of the final part of the serial.
* 1985: In "National Lampoon's European Vacation", Clark throws Rusty's beret off the tower. A dog, thinking it is a frisbee, jumps after it. Because a PG-13 was sought, the dog's life is saved by landing in a pond at the bottom of the tower.
* 1992 Summer Olympics: Was the logo of the bid of Paris for the 1992 Summer Olympics. [http://www.aldaver.com/Images/Osb/92/lg1992p1.jpg]

Historical continuity

Sometimes, it is used as a symbol of continuity, or to establish an historical setting:
* The Eiffel Tower is seen in establishing shots of Paris and from the Office of the President of the United Federation of Planets in the "" episodes "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" (1996).
* 1991: In ', the tower is shown as still standing in the 23rd century and is visible from the office of the Federation President. The tower is seen in 24th-century Paris in the episode "We'll Always Have Paris" (1988) of '.
* 1992: The Tower is featured heavily in The Timekeeper ride at Disneyland. in 1900, the present day, and 2189 when it celebrates its 300th anniversary.

Familiar visual element

Other uses, to establish the tower simply as a well known visual element.

* 1994: In the French film "Un indien dans la ville" (aka "Little Indian, Big City") 13-year-old Mimi-Siku (Ludwig Briand) who has been raised by a Native South American tribe, climbs partway up the tower in tribal costume. (The film was remade in English in 1997 as "Jungle 2 Jungle", but the venue is changed to New York City and Mimi-Siku climbs the Statue of Liberty.)
* 1995: In "La Haine", the main protagonists lament the fact that they cannot switch the lights of the tower off "like people can in the movies". The lights switch off just after they have given up and turned their backs on the tower.
* 2001: In "Moulin Rouge!", a pistol thrown from "Montmartre" by Christian ("Ewan McGregor") during the finale bounces off the tower underneath the smiling moon.

Other Appearances

* 1977: The tower appears in background shots in Wim Wenders's The American Friend
* 1980: "Sexy Eiffel Tower", by the pop group "Bow Wow Wow".
* 1981: "Condorman" attempts to fly off the tower in the movie by the same name.

* 1998: The tower is stolen by Rex the Runt and his associates in order to replace Blackpool Tower after it is destroyed by an explosion at Bob's International Hiccup Centre following Doctor Dog's takeover of the facility. After the Eiffel Tower is put into place at Blackpool Beach, the Union Jack is flown from its top and Bad Bob comments that "no one will even notice the difference."
* 2000: In "", the babies are atop the tower while using the giant Reptar invention.
* 2000: In the real-time strategy game of "", Soviet forces turn the tower into a giant tesla coil capable of destroying all French forces in the area. For copyright reasons, it is called the "Paris Tower" in the game, and has a radical change in design.
* 2001: In "The Royal Tenenbaums", the tower appears reflected on the window in a brief scene of Margot Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow) with her French lover.
* 2003: The tower is seen in the Paris map of "Midnight Club".
* 2003: The tower features in "".
* 2003: In "Le Divorce" the tower features on the movie promo poster and is also mentioned a few times in the film. Two mentions are due to the purported tour guide audio for the tower being audible in the soundtrack.
* 2004: In "Van Helsing", the tower is under construction.
* 2004: In "", the tower is turned into a stronghold time-portal built by Genma Head-Scientist Guildenstein.
* 2004: The tower flies and moves around Paris in the puppet version of "Without a Paddle", in a scene that starts only after the credits end.
* 2004: The tower is seen in "Eurotrip"

and mentioned when a protagonist ask whether they should "check out the huge line at the Eiffel Tower".
* 2005: The tower features in "A View from the Eiffel Tower" by Montenegrin director Nikola Vukčević.
* 2005: In "Evil Genius", the tower can be shrunk and stolen.
* 2005: The tower can be built as a World Wonder in "Civilization IV".
* 2005: The tower can be seen in the background, in a scene in the movie "Munich"
* 2006: In the game "", part of the French Resistance level requires the player to destroy German anti-aircraft guns on and around the tower.
* 2007: In "Mr. Bean's Holiday", Mr. Bean goes past the tower in a taxi.
* 2008: In the YouTube short film "France-Man", the villian's name is "the Eiffel terror" an obvious play on words

Other occurrences

* 1984 Robert J. Moriarty flew a Beechcraft V-35 Bonanza, N111MS, owned by Mike Smith of Mike Smith Speed Conversions in Johnson, Kansas, through the arches under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. [ [http://www.airandspacemagazine.com/ASM/Web/Site/QT/Eiffel.html] [http://www.airspacemag.com/multimedia/video/eiffel.php video] ]
* 1997(?) - current: Programs on the Fashion TV channel are headed by an animated Eiffel Tower logo complete with lighting display, accompanied by the words "MichelAdam Presents".

References