July 24, 2026
YouTube/Criterion
'Blow Out' shot on location in Philadelphia at 30th Street Station, Reading Terminal Market, City Hall and Penn's Landing.
The splashiest sequence in "Blow Out," the John Travolta thriller released 45 years ago, would also make a pretty solid ad for Center City.
After peeling out of the parking lot at 30th Street Station, Jack (Travolta) busts through a police barrier and up the steps to City Hall, zipping through the courtyard and out onto a Mummers parade — a "Liberty Day" celebration, for the purposes of this movie. Feathered cellists and clowns jump out of the way as he races down Market Street, but his frantic drive only ends when he crashes his Jeep Wrangler through a display window of Wanamaker's department store.
Director Brian De Palma shot this sequence on location with over 1,000 extras and 25 stunt drivers. To get the aerial shots of Jack's car crossing the City Hall courtyard, he had imported a custom helicopter camera rig from Norway. But just months before "Blow Out" was set to hit theaters, thieves stole roughly 2,000 feet of film out the back of a truck, including the footage of the parade.
"The truck was taking the original negative from New York to Los Angeles to be cut," De Palma recalled in an interview. "It pulled into some place, it was open and some kids obviously or somebody just came in and grabbed a whole bunch of boxes. They didn't even know what it was. I'll never forget that phone call."
The "Carrie" filmmaker, a Philly native who had walked every location in the film, knew what he had to do. He called back his actors, crew and about 500 extras to run the scene one more time. They wrapped in two days and, somehow, the film made its original premiere date.
De Palma had filmed in his hometown before "Blow Out." When he needed a stand-in for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he turned to Philly's art museum for "Dressed to Kill." But his 13th movie stands apart as a true showcase of the city, which was still shaking off its '70s grit and the Rizzo administration. Viewers see the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, still recovering from its 1976 outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, and seedy former establishments like the Apollo Theatre, a rundown porn house on 1311 Market St. that's now a parking lot.
"Blow Out" concerns a film sound technician who hears something he shouldn't have. While recording new sound effects in Fairmount Park near Henry Avenue Bridge, Jack sees a car careen into Wissahickon Creek. Though he's able to rescue a woman trapped inside, the crash kills the driver, a popular presidential candidate. Everyone chalks it up to an accident; the car blew out, it was no one's fault. But Jack is pretty sure he heard a gunshot before the blow out, and he has it on tape.
His quest to prove what sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory takes Jack all over Philadelphia. To support the production, De Palma took over the Port of History Museum (today, the Independence Seaport Museum) and turned it into a main base. He and his crew used the exterior for the movie's big climax, but they also built sets inside the building. According to the Philadelphia Daily News, they included Jack's apartment and a motel room where he takes Sally (Nancy Allen), the woman from the car, after they leave the hospital.
The paper also pegged Swarthmore College as the site of the film's opening sequence, a movie-within-a-movie Jack's making called "Co-ed Frenzy." As the title implies, it's cheap — both in budget and taste.
De Palma adds a dark edge to Philly's historic emblems. Throughout the film, Sally is stalked by the so-called Liberty Bell Strangler, a serial killer who uses piano wire to murder women. A mural and a bust of Benjamin Franklin loom in the dark outside Jack's home. Even the 13-star colonial flags hanging outside brick rowhomes feel ominous, though "Blow Out" saves its worst stuff for a scene in front of the current U.S. flag in Penn's Landing.
Some places featured in "Blow Out" are long gone — RIP Eagle II diner — but so much of the city is still standing in some form. Even after decades of upgrades, 30th Street Station is still instantly recognizable, as is Reading Terminal Market. The SEPTA logo has also persisted across time, though thankfully, the train platforms aren't quite as scary. And then as they do now, frustrated cops in Philadelphia say "crick," not "creek," when discussing the Wissahickon.
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