Mobile, Alabama features prominently in baseball lore, with more players in Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame than any city except New York and Los Angeles. The list includes Hank Aaron, Ozzie Smith, and Satchel Paige. Singer Jimmy Buffett is another famous Mobilian, as is Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, Inc.
Mobile is occasionally featured in movies and in literature, such as HBO's The Pacific miniseries, the film Driving Miss Daisy and the novel Forrest Gump. Mobile is also the setting for one of the most famous lines of the American Civil War. During the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, Admiral David Farragut is said to have uttered: "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
Film
Lifted (Full Movie) boy who's father is deployed to Afghanistan - 13-year-old Henry Matthews struggles with life after his father is deployed to Afghanistan. With the help of a local pastor, the boy decides to take part in a local ...
Many scenes in director Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind were filmed in Mobileâ€"in the Bankhead Tunnel, in a large hangar at the Brookley Aeroplex (alien mothership arrival) and some exterior shots near the hangar, and in a West Mobile suburb (exteriors at the Neary residence). Nearby Bay Minette stood in for Moorcroft, Wyoming in the rail-station evacuation scene.
The opening scenes of The Final Destination were filmed at Mobile International Speedway, in nearby Irvington, Alabama
Most of the Steven Seagal movie Under Siege (co-starring Tommy Lee Jones) was filmed on the USSÂ Alabama, which is docked on Mobile Bay at Battleship Memorial Park and open to the public.
In the movie Driving Miss Daisy, Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy) has her driver Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) drive her to her brother's birthday party in Mobile.
Much of the feature films Love Liza (starring Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Hometown Legend (starring Terry O'Quinn), and the TV movie Sacrifice (starring Michael Madsen and Diane Farr) were shot in Mobile.
Brian Bosworth's movie Stone Cold also featured scenes shot in Mobile.
In the Coen Brothers comedy O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Soggy Bottom Boys are told their song Man of Constant Sorrow is a hit with the explanation that it's played "all the way down in Mobile."
In the movie Maverick Mrs Annabelle Bransford (played by Jodie Foster) claims that she is from Mobile and has tried very hard to forget the place.
In Con Air Nicolas Cage's character briefly returned to his wife in Mobile in the beginning of the movie.
In a 2010 episode (The Double Blind) of TNT's Leverage the Mobile city council building is featured in an aerial shot. The building is supposed to represent the offices of a medical research company. In the scene the downtown Holiday Inn and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception are among the building featured.
The movie Red (2010 film) characters visit Mobile. The actor Mary-Louise Parker mispronounces Mobile.
Many scenes in HBO's The Pacific are set in Mobile, since the series is partially based on the book With the Old Breed by Mobile native Eugene Sledge.
The movie Tough Luck was partially filmed in Mobile. The movie starred Armand Assante, Norman Reedus, and Dagmara Dominczyk. The carnival scenes and the restaurant scene were filmed in Mobile. The restaurant scene was filmed in the restaurant The Pillars. The movie was originally to be named Grift but ended up being named Tough Luck and was released straight to video in 2003.
The movie Rage (2014), starring Nicolas Cage and Danny Glover, was filmed in the downtown area of Mobile from June 8, 2013 to July 16, 2013.
Literature
- Mobile native Eugene Walter celebrated Mobile in his fiction and non-fiction. His Love You Good, See You Later (1964) is set in the bayou country near Mobile.
- Henry Miller's essay, "My Dream of Mobile," is in his book, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (New Directions, 1945).
- Early portions of the novel Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford are set in Mobile.
- In Winston Groom's novel Forrest Gump, Forrest's home town is Mobile, as opposed to Greenbow, Alabama in the film.
- Jack Kerley's Carson Ryder crime novels are set in Mobile.
- Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez's "The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor" begins at Mobile, where the main character's ship, the Colombian Navy A.R.C Caldas, was undergoing repairs.
- Toni Morrison's novel, The Bluest Eye contains a lengthy description of how being raised in Mobile, among other Southern cities, informs one's attitudes. "Mobile girls" are ascribed a passage and several characteristics such as being "narrow, tall, and still."
Music
Mobile is mentioned in the following songs:
- "Alabama Gulf Coast" by Sunset Avenue
- "Alabama Sundown" recorded by Dolly Parton, written by Dave Kirby, Danny Morrison
- "Bloody 98" by Blue Mountain
- "Brand New Deal in Mobile" by Joe Liggins and the Honeydrippers
- "Crazy Cajun Cake Walk Band" covered by Robert Palmer, written by Jim Ford, Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas
- "Guitar Man" by singer/songwriter Jerry Reed covered by Elvis Presley
- "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" by Cher
- "Hard Luck Story" by Whiskeytown
- "Jump on It" (remix) by Sir Mix-a-Lot
- "The New Workout Plan" by Kanye West
- "Let It Rock" by Chuck Berry
- "Let It Roll (Let It Rock)" performed by Mel McDaniel, written by Chuck Berry
- "Let's Get This Paper" by Rich Boy
- "Midnight in Montgomery" by Alan Jackson
- "Minyan Man" by Shlock Rock
- "Mobile" by Marcia Ball
- "Mobile" written by R. Wells/D. Holt, performed by Julius La Rosa among others
- "Mobile Bay" by Johnny Cash
- "Mobile Boogie" by The Delmore Brothers covered by Hank Williams, Jr.
- "The New World" by X
- "On Mobile Bay" - by Neil Moret, Charles N. Daniels and Earl C. Jones
- "Out of Alabama" by Cole Deggs & The Lonesome
- "Saxophones" by Jimmy Buffett
- "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" by Bob Dylan
- "The Mobile Line", as performed by Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band
- "The Shake" by Neal McCoy
- "A Southern Thing" by Better Than Ezra
- "Anywhere But Here" by Brice Long, covered by Chris Cagle
- "Stars Fell on Alabama" by Frank Perkins and Mitchell Parish, recorded by the Guy Lombardo orchestra, Jimmy Buffett, and others.
- "Stars on the Water" written by Rodney Crowell, later performed by Jimmy Buffett
- "Twenty-Nine Miles From Mobile" by Charlie Daniels
- "About A Bruise" by Iron & Wine
Sports
Five baseball players from Mobile have entered baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York: Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey, Satchel Paige, and Ozzie Smith. In tribute to the city's baseball history, the stadium for the minor league Mobile BayBears is named for Hank Aaron. Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Jake Peavy is also from Mobile and Jon Lieber of the Philadelphia Phillies lives in a suburb of Mobile and attended the University of South Alabama with Luis Gonzales.
Notable football players from Mobile are the first pick in the 2007 NFL draft, JaMarcus Russell, four time Pro Bowl tackle Willie Anderson, three time Pro Bowl tackle Chris Samuels, NFL Quarterback Scott Hunter, Cincinnati Bengal's quarterback AJ McCarron, Los Angeles Rams' linebacker Mark Barron, former Atlanta Falcon dimeback Chevis Jackson, and former Dallas Cowboys running back Sherman Williams. Ken "The Snake" Stabler, is from nearby Foley, Al,. Legendary Georgia football coach Vince Dooley is also from Mobile.
Former WWE wrestler "Hardcore" Bob Holly and wrestling manager Bill Moody (better known as Percy Pringle and Paul Bearer) are also from Mobile.
Other notables
Mobile gained some Internet notoriety for a leprechaun video that circulated around St. Patrick's Day in 2006.
Red imported fire ants, an invasive species infesting the southern United States, first arrived in Mobile from Brazil.
See also
- History of Mobile, Alabama
- List of people from Mobile, Alabama
References
- Levin, Kevin M., "Mobile Bay", Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBNÂ 0-393-04758-X.
