Props in Movies

Psycho (1960)

Who doesn’t wish that Psycho had been filmed in a real motel? That one night, you might pull off a road somewhere remote, following the signs pointing towards a motel, only to see that house looming out of the gloom at you? A lone light might lead you to the reception, where you pay four times the going rate for a room, order up a Janet Leigh burger, and shell out an extra $20 for a souvenir mug decorated with the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock…

Sadly though, the Psycho house, along with the rest of the motel, was a set, built in the Universal backlot, using pieces taken from existing sets. It’s still there, and considerably refurbished from the two-wall shell used in the movie. It’s been moved around the backlot a couple of times, and the motel now sits between sets for How the Grinch Stole Christmas and War of the Worlds. You can see it on Google Maps or Wikimapia, or you can visit it as part of the Universal Studios tour (complete with a very cheesy encounter with Norman Bates).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom may not be the strongest film in the series, but it opens with a fine song-and-dance number, followed by an equally well choreographed shoot-out in a Chinese nightclub. What’s being fought over are the earthly remains—such as they are—of the Chinese emperor Nurhaci.

Born in 1559, Nurhaci began his career as leader of one of the many Manchu tribes, though he quickly consolidated his power, unifying the tribes and founding the Later Jin dynasty in 1616.

He also led a rebellion against the reigning Ming dynasty. This would turn out to be a long war: it was under his grandson that the dynasty Nurhaci had founded (now renamed the Qing dynasty) would finally rule China. The Qing dynasty would continue to govern into the twentieth century, when it was finally replaced by the Republic of China following the Xinhai Revolution of 1911.

With such an illustrious history, it’s surprising that he accepted such a—ahem—small part in Temple of Doom.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The Last Man on Earth features a lengthy flashback sequence, during which we find out a little more about the origins of the disease that has all but wiped out the human race. An immensely unconvincing newspaper is produced, on which the headline reads: PLAGUE CLAIMS HUNDREDS: is Europes’ disease carried on the wind?

Maybe the typesetters were already starting to feel the effects of the disease. Then again, it may be the end of the world, but that’s no excuse for sloppy punctuation.

Come to think of it, I’m not too sure about the capitalisation here either. But I’d best stop now, before people start muttering about stones and glass houses…

Frankenstein (1931)

Near the beginning of James Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein, the hunchbacked assistant breaks into a university in order to steal a brain. First he rather wisely takes a jar marked “normal brain”, but he’s startled by a loud noise and drops it, forcing him to instead take the other brain on offer, this one bearing the less promising label “abnormal brain”.

According to Rudy Behlmer, who supplies a commentary for the Universal DVD of the film, this detail was apparently a last-minute addition. It would seem to contrast with the film’s presentation of the creature as an innocent, and Behlmer suggests that perhaps the intention was to provide a shorthand explanation for the creature’s violence early in the film.

Still, the brain substitution is a bit silly, and doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the story. It was deservedly parodied in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein (1974), in which the hunchback is under the impression that he’s picked up the brain of one “Abby Normal”.

Dracula (1931)

Watching Tod Browning’s 1931 version of Dracula for the first time can be an odd experience. Apart from seeing Bela Lugosi laying the groundwork for eighty years of imitations, there are some real double-take moments, like hearing those classic lines spoken without irony (“Listen to them… Children of the night… What music they make.”), and seeing Dwight Frye as Renfield laying the groundwork for Andy Serkis’s Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, well, and the vampire bee…

The vampire bee appears near the beginning, when we first see the Count’s castle and the Weird Sisters are waking up. After a couple of shots of the women beginning to emerge from their coffins, there’s a brief shot of what appears to be a bee (or maybe a wasp?) crawling out of its own, teeny-tiny coffin.

A report from a fantasy convention in 2000 does mention the bee, and suggests that it might be intended to be a giant bee in a regular-sized coffin. Unfortunately, it really doesn’t look that way. It’s almost cute.

Lacking any definitive explanation of the bee, why its there, and whether it’s a giant bee or a tiny coffin, it’s probably best not to even get started on the armadillos that appear a moment later…