THE GREATEST REAL ESTATE MOVIES
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA-The Third Man, The Seventh Seal and The Battleship Potemkin all have very different plots but each is related. The movies all contain top real estate moments in the history of world cinema, according to a recent article on the topic authored by a real estate scholar in Penn State's Smeal College of Business.
The article, "The Greatest Real Estate Movies of All Time: The Sequel," is authored by Austin J. Jaffe, the Philip H. Sieg Professor of Business Administration and director of the Institute for Real Estate Studies in Penn State's Smeal College of Business. The article appears in the Winter/Spring 2001 issue of the Illinois Real Estate Letter. Jaffe notes that the paper is a sequel to one authored by another real estate scholar, Steve Malpezzi that appeared in a 1999 issue of the Illinois Real Estate Letter.
"Steve captured many of the special moments from the history of American movies and their relationship to real estate; however, that survey was made up almost entirely of American movies and the cinematic world extends beyond the U.S. collection of films," says Jaffe, who is currently the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Property Systems in the Centre for Property Studies at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, Canada.
Jaffe's survey includes the classic 1946 French version of Beauty and The Beast, Raise the Red Lantern, Weekend and perhaps a hundred other foreign gems.
Jaffe notes that many movies have a link to real estate.
"In Boom Town, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy remind us that natural resources contain valuable property rights worth fighting over. Real estate is integral to the storyline of American Beauty," says Jaffe. "The problems of primitive man and his quest for shelter are captured in Quest for Fire. The need for shelter mattered eighty thousand years ago as well as in modern times; some things never change."
Movies have long made use of assorted property types, says Jaffe. For example, apartments are the central theme in Roman Polanski's Repulsion. Another common theme is to relate the struggles of characters finding themselves trapped within cities such as Fritz Lang's M.
Jaffe's paper identifies the top 14 real estate moments in the world cinema.
"I wanted to do a top 10 list but I couldn't decide which four films to cut," says Jaffe.
His list includes, in no particular order: Battleship Potemkin, The Seventh Seal, The Beauty and the Beast, Raise the Red Latern, Walkabout, Ikiru, Fitzcarraldo, Weekend, Jules and Jim, Virgin Springs, The Third Man, Virdiana, The Loves On the Bridge, and Grand Illusion.
Austin's article also includes a section, "Missing Yankee Gems," that he felt should have made Steve Malpezzi's list. Those movies include: Of Mice and Men, This Land is Mine, Home Alone, Sunset Boulevard, Boom Town, American Beauty, The Fountainhead, George Washington Slept Here, Blume in Love, and Edward Scissorhands.
Jaffe, who is recognized as a real estate authority throughout the world, has served as a consultant to The World Bank, Nordic Council of Ministers, Prudential Realty Group, Eastern European Real Property Foundation, Real Estate Research Institute, and others. He is the author or co-author of thirteen books including Fundamentals of Real Estate Investment and Property Rights and Privatisation in the Baltic Countries. He has published over 75 articles in academic and professional journals. He is a member of several editorial review boards in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, and Hong Kong. He was the 1994 President of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.
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Editors: Austin Jaffe is at 506-458-7200 (through December) or 814-865-1938 (Smeal College office) or [email protected]. For assistance of a copy of the paper, contact Steve Infanti of the Smeal College Media Relations' Office at 814-863-3798 or [email protected].
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