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MOVIES
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” said Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.
He may have been talking to his co-star, but he could well have been predicting the relationship
between film and attractions. In the first of a new series looking at movies within attractions,
Kathleen Whyman talks to the creators of two museums dedicated to the film industry
The NBC Universal Experience,
Hollywood
JOHN MURDY, CREATIVE DIRECTOR
L
earning about the history of film in a studio that dates back
to the birth of movies is the premise for The NBC Universal
Experience. Part of Universal Studios Hollywood, the
two-year-old museum showcases artefacts from the studio’s fi rst
Oscar-winning fi lm in 1930, All Quiet on the Western Front, right
through to 2009 fi lms Public Enemies, Milk and Frost Nixon.
“Universal has such a rich movie history in LA,” says creative
director John Murdy. “There’s an incredible wealth of movie history
and props, costumes and artefacts the public’s never seen before.”
Costume drama
The fi rst half of the exhibit, Onscreen, displays costumes and props
used in fi lms. Behind The Scenes reveals the designs and technologies
that go into making a movie. This includes an extensive
collection of early movie cameras and pre-cinema devices, which
pre-date projectors, some going back to the mid-1800s.
The exhibition has approximately 100 pieces on display,
which change every few months to make the most of the extensive
archive. Costumes come from fi lms including Mamma Mia,
Elizabeth – the Golden Age and The Blues Brothers plus Johnny
Depp’s John Dillinger wardrobe from Public Enemies. Among
the props are Gregory Peck’s briefcase and glasses from To Kill
a Mockingbird, the communicator ET phoned home with and
Norman Bates’ taxidermy owl from Psycho. In Behind the Scenes,
visitors can see the original concept drawings for Bruce – the great
white shark from Jaws, dinosaur maquettes from Jurassic Park, Jim
Carrey’s prosthetics from The Grinch and a miniature DeLorean
[the car modifi ed into a time machine] from Back to the Future.
Costumes from The Mummy,
Elizabeth, Seabiscuit and
The Blues Brothers,
Exhibit of Universal’s long history as a working movie studio
Murdy would like to display more but doesn’t have the space.
“You think miniatures would be small, but they’re getting bigger
all the time,” he laughs. “Peter Jackson, the director of King Kong,
renamed them bigiatures. The castle from Van Helsing is 20ft (6m)
tall. The Saturn rocket in the launch sequence from Apollo 13 is
also 20ft tall. I’d love to showcase them but they’re too large.”
Oscar winner
The key attraction is Universal’s best picture Oscar that was won
for The Sting. “We’ve all seen Oscars on tv, but never up close,”
says Murdy. “For a lot of people that’s a big thrill. ”
For Murdy, the big thrill was discovering the artefacts, many of
them decades old. “It’s gratifying that all these items survived,”
says Murdy. “Movie studios never used to think props or costumes
would mean anything to the public, so they were recycled or
PHOTO CREDIT: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD PHOTO CREDIT: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD
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