Coral Castle is a stone complex in unincorporated Miami-Dade County near Homestead, Florida, created by Edward Leedskalnin over several decades in the first half of the twentieth century. Built from large blocks of oolitic limestone, the site includes walls, towers, carved furniture, a sundial, and other sculptural features. Its unusual appearance and the long-running mystery surrounding how Leedskalnin moved the heavy stones on his own have made it one of Florida’s most distinctive roadside landmarks.
Coral Castle appears in The Wild Women of Wongo (1958), Nude on the Moon (1961), and a number of documentary and television productions about the site itself, including In Search of… (1981). The two earlier films are the clearest examples of Coral Castle being used as a dramatic screen location rather than simply as the subject of a documentary.
In The Wild Women of Wongo (1958), Coral Castle was used as the set for the dragon-god temple. Its carved stone structures and enclosed spaces gave the low-budget fantasy film a visually unusual setting that stood out from ordinary studio backdrops.
In Nude on the Moon (1961), Coral Castle was used for the film’s lunar scenes. The site’s strange stone forms and artificial-looking landscape helped create the impression of an otherworldly environment, making it one of the location’s most memorable screen uses.
In In Search of… (1981), Coral Castle appears in the episode “The Castle of Secrets,” which focuses on the mystery of the site and includes a dramatized version of Leedskalnin moving the stones. Here the location is used not as a fictional setting, but as the centre of the programme’s investigation into the castle’s origins and construction.
Nude on the Moon
Nude on the Moon most distinctive location is Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, which was used for the Moon sequences and even in the film’s credits.
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