HBO Returns to Film at Glen Cove Mansion

It's as if the ghosts of the robber barons, the oil zillionaires and the retail chain magnate extended boney fingers to movie producers and beckoned them back to the estates the tycoons found so attractive here in Glen Cove at the turn of the last century. 

at the former Woolworth estate on Crescent Beach Road, as the set for a California mansion, imported palm trees and all. 

HBO returned earlier this month to a former Pratt estate, now the  on Dosoris and Old Tappan, for the filming of "Too Big To Fail." It is a television special about the early days of the still-ongoing financial crisis based on the best-selling book by New York Times writer Andrew Ross Sorkin, "Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System – and Themselves."  

The story centers on that frenzied period in 2008 when the financial system appeared to be in meltdown and the frantic attempts by people in the government and on Wall Street who were trying to ward off the rapidly approaching collapse. 

"There aren't enough lifeboats," JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told his staff at the time. "Someone is going to die. So you might as well enjoy the champagne and caviar."

How does a Glen Cove setting fit in this time? No California palm-fringed estate this go-round. According to one observer's posting on the Internet Movie Database, the Glen Cove Mansion is the stand-in for scenes at no less than the White House. 

Directing is Curtis Hanson, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for "L.A Confidential."

The cast is an amalgam of movie celebs playing financial page-celebs, who in most cases are as famous as their portrayers, a kind of entertainment parallel of the Chinese menu, column A/column B options. Paul Giamatti plays Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Ed Asner is billionaire investor Warren Buffett ("the Oracle of Omaha"). William Hurt is cast as former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Billy Crudup plays current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. James Woods is former Lehman Brothers chief executive Dick Fuld. Dan Hedaya is U.S. Representative Barney Frank. Cynthia Nixon and Topher Grace play Washington power brokers.

No date is yet available for when the movie will be broadcast.