Bowling Alley Becomes Setting for 'Hallmark' Movie Scene

The Sunnyside Bowladrome became home to a scene from a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie on Tuesday.

The bowling alley on Water Street, near the Peabody line, was transformed into a scene from “The Makeover” where Elliot Doolittle (played by David Walton) hosts a “Doolittle for Congress” event where he invited the public to come “bowl with their candidate,” according to the movie’s publicist, Ellen Nesselrode-Jasa.

In the scene that was shot on Tuesday, Walton teaches Hannah Higgins (played by Julia Stiles), his political consultant, to bowl in “an embarrassingly funny scene in front of reporters and their cameras.”

The movie is scheduled to air on ABC at the end of January as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, Nesselrode-Jasa said.

The set took over the bowling alley parking lot and another parking lot across the street plus the parking lot at Onion Town Grill.

Nobody on the set would comment on Tuesday, but the shooting closed the Bowladrome on Tuesday. Onion Town Grill across the street was also closed. Some of the extras also parked up the street and around the corner near BJ’s and Massachusetts General of the North Shore off Endicott Street.

Nesselrode-Jasa said the plan was for shooting to wrap up on Tuesday, but that it could extend into Wednesday morning for a short time. From there, they planned to shoot a scene on Harrison Avenue in Boston and also Charlestown, Newton and Somerville. Shooting will happen in the greater Boston area through Oct. 10, she said, but did not plan to return to Danvers.

The movie’s two biggest names are Stiles - who starred in opposite Matt Damon in “The Bourne Identity” and was also in “Dexter” - and David Walton, who was in “Perfect Couples” and “Heist.”

Camryn Manheim, who has been in “The Practice” and “The Ghost Whisperer,” plays Stiles’ business partner who recruited Walton’s character to run for Congress instead of Stiles’ character, who plays a Harvard-educated that runs for Congress but is a poor candidate because her “considerable smarts translate to voters as ‘uppity.’”

It is directed by John Gray (“Ghost Whisperer” and Hallmark Hall of Fame’s “The Seventh Stream”). It is a remake of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” Nesselrode-Jasa said, set against a political backdrop. It also swaps the sexes of the lead characters from the original “Pygmalion.”

“The roles are reversed,” Nesselrode-Jasa said.

A complete press release describing the plot is attached to this story as a PDF.