As US moviegoers are about to discover, The World’s End is a handy reminder that there are worse outcomes to a bar crawl than a questionable doner and a category five hangover. With that lesson in mind, we decided to explore some of the other movie hostelries, well, you really wouldn’t want to explore. The Old West is filled with salons that make that grimy pub you always avoid look like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, so we’ve decided to start there and head east, tail between our legs, before ending in an old favourite in a galaxy far, far away. Keep your head down and the exit in view.
Film: Johnny Guitar (1954)
Location: Arizona
Opening hours: Very flexible
Clientele: Gamblers, shooters, boozers, more gamblers***
Entertainment***: Roulette, music, arson***
Price of a round***: Just tell ‘em you’ll be around for a while and it’s free. (Note: this doesn’t work in All Bar One.)
Vienna (Joan Crawford) is just trying to keep her little corner of Arizona in whisky and good times in Nicholas Ray’s radical Western, but bitter rival Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) wants her hanged, her bar burned to the ground and if at all possible, a barn dance arranged on their ashes. No wonder the barman and croupiers wear the hangdog expression of men permanently on P45 alley. When you chuck the The Dancin' Kid (Scott Brady) and Sterling Hayden’s gun-slinging busker Johnny Guitar into an already combustible mix, you’re got all the ingredients of a fiery Friday night. Bring a fire extinguisher.
Film: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Location: Mexico
***Opening ***hours: See film title
Clientele: Vampires, mostly
Entertainment: Live music, a selection of hot and cold pussy
Price of a round: Very, *very *expensive
On the surface, this looks like a fun night out for those of a more, well, open-minded persuasion. There’s a lively crowd enjoying snake-clad performance artiste Santánico Pandemónium (Salma Hayek) to the music of Tito & Tarantula, and, frankly, who wouldn’t enjoy that? (Apart from the snake.) Seth and Richie Gecko (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) certainly do. There’s only one minor problem. Everyone else is a vampire and things get bloody, fast. Our advice? Go for lunch.
Film: Road House (1989)
Location: Jasper, Missouri
Opening hours: All day
Clientele: Incredibly violent people
Entertainment: Live music and fighting
Price of a round: Whatever it costs, it’s a waste. 95 per cent of drinks served at Double Deuce end up thrown at another customer
It’s genuinely difficult to understand how an establishment like this stays open. Everyone is bopping along nicely when, lo and behold, someone throws a punch, Patrick Swayze has to hit a punter with a pool cue and some troublemaker's chucked a stool into the bar. Seriously people, simmer down! On thing is for sure: this is the place to go if you actively enjoy carnage or you’re prepping for a Russian wedding.
Film: Django Unchained (2012)
Location: Daughtery, Texas
Opening hours: Midday until someone dies
Clientele: Pretty much no-one
Entertainment: Awkward stares from the racist locals
Price of a round: It’s serve yourself, mostly
The saloons of the Old South have a well-earned reputation for trouble and pistol-based shenanigans. If you’re planning on going back to 1858 and visiting the local in Daughtery, it’s best to come well-prepared. And by ‘well-prepared’, we mean ‘with a gun snuck up your sleeve’. Thankfully, Christoph Waltz had his relevant documents and so riding into town, pouring himself a pint and shooting the sheriff wasn’t an issue.
Film: The Departed (2006)
Location: Boston
Opening hours: Midday until 2am
Clientele: A group of thugs that aren’t keen on cranberries and/or Leonardo DiCaprio
Entertainment: Heavy guitar tunes and life lessons from Ray Winstone
Price of a round: No money changes hands, so it's hard to say. It’s amazing how many people in films don’t actually pay for their drinks
A drinking establishment in which, like many in this list, you’ll have to watch what you say. A bit of banter with Leo DiCaprio about his girly drink could see you with shards of glass sticking out of your head, especially if you accuse him of being on his period. It might not be the friendliest of joints, but there’s some good pub quiz knowledge lurking in there. For example, cranberry juice is a diuretic. Who knew?
Film: GoodFellas (1990)
Location: Queens, New York
Opening hours: 11am until 2am
Clientele: Gangsters and some generally unsavoury characters
Entertainment: ‘Atlantis’ by Donovan, ball-breaking by Frank Vincent
Price of a round: On the house!
Oh dear, Joe Pesci only wanted a quiet drink with his crew. He thought he’d said goodbye to his embarrassing past as a shoe-shiner... Frank Vincent had different ideas. And so, as loudmouth Billy Batts, Frank ended up dead on the floor of the Suite Lounge with a hole in his head after one too many wise cracks at the little man’s expense. If you’re planning a visit, make sure you’re polite to everyone and steer clear of mentioning fellow drinkers' CVs.
Film: Cool Runnings (1993)
Location: Calgary, Canada
Opening hours: 2pm until 1am
Clientele: Some East German heavies and a wide selection of cowboys
Entertainment: Country music and line dancing
Price of a round: Unknown
There is a bar brawl between the German and Jamaican bobsled teams, sure, but it's safe to say that Cool Runnings' icy fracas is probably the most mediocre fight scene ever witnessed. So if you do get in to any trouble while you’re there, don’t panic. A light shove here, a sugar glass bottle to the back of the head there and you should walk away just fine. The country dancing, though... that, you can’t escape.
Film: Withnail & I (1987)
Location: Tavistock Crescent, London
Opening hours: Noon until 11pm
Clientele: An angry Irishman with a dislike for perfume and a reputation for unprovoked violence. Some unphased regulars
Entertainment: Visitors can enjoy their drinks in silence or bugger off
Price of a round: Somehow two large gins and two pints of cider come in at under a tenner... then again, it was 1969
The Mother Black Cap isn’t the place for you if you have a nervous disposition, smell overly fragrant or have a heart condition. If you’re on a budget however, there aren’t many places that can top it. It's a shame, then, that Withnail (Richard E. Grant ) and I (Paul McGann) are involved in a mix-up with an intimidating Irish local with bat-like hearing, which results in the displeased punter expressing his anger and the twosome beating a tactical retreat. Ah well - we know a tea shop which will give you a warm welcome, don't you worry...
Film: An American Werewolf In London (1981)
Location: The Yorkshire Moors
Opening hours: Irrelevant – no-one’s leaving while it’s dark
Clientele: Wisecracking but forgetful chess players. Assorted gloomy locals
Entertainment: The occasional joke with a punchline not funny enough to warrant the time it takes to tell it. Also, darts
Price of a round: N/A. Beer-wise, the locals don't buy, they nurse
There’s always that one drunk who feels they’ve got to take the spotlight, and here it’s Brian Glover. There’s northern banter aplenty in The Slaughtered Lamb, but it does mean sitting through the local funnyman’s anecdotes. Don’t even think about commenting on the décor – the pentagram on the wall isn’t there for the feng shui – or making conversation with the locals. When you leave, order a taxi.
Film: The Long Good Friday (1980)
Location: Wapping, London
Opening hours: Noon until it explodes
Clientele: Dead, mostly
Entertainment: Fruit machine, with fruit now scattered to the four winds
Price of a round: Who cares? You won’t be around long enough to pay for it
London in the ‘80s was no place for the casual drinker. The kind of bombs you get here aren't prefixed by the word 'Jäger' – they're served by an IRA man with a grudge – as the poor punters of The Lion & Unicorn will testify. The real target, Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), escapes unscathed, but the pub is blown to smithereens. No wonder unicorns are extinct.
Film: The Wicker Man (1973)
Location: Summerisle, Scotland
Opening hours: 9 until midnight
Clientele: Pervy old men
Entertainment: A leery sing-song from the locals about a barmaid 50 years their junior. ‘Roll Out the Barrel’, it ain’t
Price of a round: N/A – But you’re entitled to a discount if you can hold a jaunty tune
The place to go if you enjoy making policemen feel uncomfortable and like to do it through the medium of song. That said, you'll have to remeber that the band of older gentleman that reside at the Green Man aren’t shy about making their feelings known towards the daughter of a rather camp-looking landlord who doesn’t bat an eyelid at their creepy advances and rather provocative dance moves. We’ll give them one thing: not may drunken locals can nail an impromptu shanty like the locals on Summerisle.
Film: The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (2005)
Location: London
Opening hours: 11am until the construction of a hyperspace bypass commences (the plans have been on display in the planning office on Alpha Centauri for the previous fifty years, you know)
Clientele: Cheery regulars and a middle-aged woman in leopard print trousers
Entertainment: Perry Como and drinks on Ford Prefect (who looks a lot like Mos Def)
Price of a round: Six pints of bitter cost less than a tenner. Get in! Also remember to buy a pack of salted peanuts, it'll help with the headache
In terms of places to visit when you have just minutes to live, The Horse And Groom wouldn’t be the first choice of many. This little country pub, while the epicentre of an apocalypse, has a certain tired charm to go with its easily duped barman and cheap beverage. It's as good a place as any to reminisce about those happy times with Zooey Deschanel.
Film: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Location: Paris
Opening hours: 9pm until early hours
Clientele: Some drunk soldiers, a sober soldier, some vengeful Jewish soldiers and Posh Michael Fassbender soldier
Entertainment: A good old-fashioned game of "Who Am I?" in which 70 per cent of the participants are basically Himmler
Price of a round: Unknown, but be careful how many fingers you hold up when you order it
Awkward silences, accusations, counter-accusations and testicle shooting gives La Louisiane the sort of convivial vibe that made the Bridge Cafe such a joy to behold in The Apprentice. On the upside, they serve beer out of giant feet.
Film: Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Location: Crouch End
Opening hours: 10am until midnight (closed in the event of a zombie apocalypse)
Clientele: Human locals, zombie locals
Entertainment: Queen on the jukebox
Price of a round: A tenner or so
If you enjoy Freddie Mercury, throwing darts at people or killing zombies you’ll struggle to find a pub better suited to your needs. In fact, Shaun’s life practically revolves around The Winchester, so it’s bound to have some merits besides the world’s first jukebox with a ‘random’ setting. It’s amazing that people kept putting money in there.
Film: Memento (2004)
Location: L.A.
Opening hours: Unknown
Clientele: Amnesiacs, lounge lizards and... wait, why are we here again?
Entertainment: Spitting in a drink and serving it to the man with the memory problem
Price of a round: Free
Look, it’s Trinity from The Matrix! This time she’s sticking two fingers up to a forgetful Guy Pearce who has waltzed in wearing her boyfriend’s suit. Ferdy’s is not where you want to be if you enjoy conversation and a lively atmosphere. Having said that, if you’re a fan of old fashioned metal tankards and fancy blue leather sofas then it might be worth a visit.
Film: Gremlins (1984)
Location: Kingston Falls, USA
Opening hours: Closed before midnight
Clientele: Drunk gremlins
Entertainment: Unbridled carnage, poker and an obscene amount of popcorn
Price of a round: Serve yourself
It’s a case of all out mayhem at Dorry’s. For reasons unknown to us, the frightened woman continues to serve the rowdy bunch rather than running away before a Polaroid camera and ceiling fan save her bacon. Still, cigarettes, maize-based snacks and beer are there in abundance. If you’re partial to any of the above, it won’t be a complete disappointment.
Film: Good Will Hunting (1997)
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Opening hours: Midday until 3am
Clientele: Harvard University students and ladies man Ben Affleck
Entertainment: Throwing some knowledge down, University Challenge-style
Price of a round: Unknown
Don’t walk in to the Bow And Arrow and think you can embarrass any of Matt Damon’s friends. Sporting a Boyzone hair cut, Damon emphatically crushes a man with an equally ridiculous bonce who is a strange combination of both a jock and nerd. If being outwitted wasn’t enough, the genius janitor isn’t afraid to take you on in the street either.
Film: Airplane! (1980)
Location: Off the Barbary Coast
Opening hours: All day
Clientele: “Every reject and cutthroat from Bombay to Calcutta”
Entertainment: Trombone solos and the Bee Gees
Price of a round: Unknown
The Magumba Bar would be an... interesting place to visit if nothing else. When you’re not being serenaded by a sexy brass player, you’re free to watch two violent girl scouts beat seven bells out of each other. We could tell you all about how easy it is to fall in love there, but we wouldn’t want anyone to hang themselves.
Film: Trainspotting (1996)
Location: Edinburgh
Opening hours: 11am until the police arrive
Clientele: A sociopathic Scotsman; some less sociopathic Scotsmen
Entertainment: Drinking. Fighting. Fighting *and *drinking
Price of a round: The average price of a pint in Glasgow is £2.75. Now there are five of you and you’ll need one pint to lob over the balcony rail. So, £16.50. Maths, aye?
Generally speaking, this pub seems nice – it’s a good size, seems busy and has a lively atmosphere – then someone (i.e. Begbie) has to go and throw a pint glass off the second floor. As is the theme with these establishments, brawls break out with chairs as well as punches being thrown and chances are you'll come down with a case of not really knowing what's going on. It might be worth poking your head in the door but you'll run the risk of taking a glass to the head or being kicked in the pipeworks. Good luck!
Film: Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977)
Location: Tatooine
Opening hours**: Dawn until the suns go down
Clientele: Scum and villainy, mainly. Also, some trigger-happy smugglers
Entertainment: Space-jazz
Price of a round: 28 galactic credits
With Wetherspoons yet to make it as far as the Outer Rim, it appears the Mos Eisley Cantina is the hottest spot in town. A bizarre set of rules means that weapons, murderers and bounty hunters are fine, but as soon as any droids try to sneak in, the proverbial Bantha doo doo hits the fan. Be sure to bring Obi Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) as your wingman. He’s not great with the ladies, but he’s deep into Figrin D'an And The Modal Nodes. Oh, and he'll keep you alive.