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PHOTO CREDIT: LARISA DIZDAR ON BEHALF OF THE MOVIEUM
Superman’s iconic costume
was donated to the London
Film Museum by The Prop
Store of London
destroyed. We worked with the archives and collections department
to retrieve what we could. It was like detective work. We found
some old crates in a warehouse at Universal that weren’t part of
the archive,” he recalls. “We opened them up and saw the props
from All Quiet on the Western Front, Errol Flynn’s sword and Shirley
Temple’s teddy bear. It was a treasure trove of our movie history.”
Shark attack
As part of Universal Studios, the museum is open to all visitors to
the park, but Murdy is still very pleased with the number of visitors,
“safe to say millions”, and the length of time they spend there.
“Each display area has an interactive video kiosk providing
details about the display and behind the scenes stills,” explains
Murdy. “We went through 20,000 images and researched all the
movies to come up with the most thorough information for visitors.
A classic example of this is Jaws,” he continues. “It was the movie
that launched the summer blockbusters and one of the biggest
movies of all times. In researching the fi lm we unearthed stories
about how problematic the shark was and have all the mechanical
drawings and designs. In the exhibits you can see what they
were trying to do with these special effects that the whole picture
was riding on. The shark had been tested in LA in fresh water.
But where they were fi lming – on the East Coast of America – is
salt water. When they put the shark in the salt water, it sank to the
bottom of the ocean on the very fi rst day. As a result of the shark
malfunctioning, Steven [Spielberg] got creative. He was three times
over schedule and wildly over budget so he used his camera to
be the shark. You don’t see the shark until 45 minutes into the fi lm
because it wasn’t working, but building up the suspense made it
the classic fi lm it is today, even though it was an accident.
PHOTO CREDIT: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD
The Oscar® awarded to Universal Pictures in 1973 for The Sting
London Film Museum
JONATHAN SANDS, CEO, ECM INTERNATIONAL
he iconic Rank gong is the fi rst thing visitors see as they
walk down the red carpet at the London Film Museum.
T Nostalgic and instantly recognisable, it’s part of movie history.
But history isn’t the attraction’s main aim, as Jonathan Sands,
CEO of operator ECM (London) Limited, is quick to point out. “The
collection celebrates the people behind the camera as well as the
fi lms themselves,” he explains. “It’s dedicated to all aspects of the
fi lm industry in the UK and illustrates that there’s so much more to
fi lm making than directors, producers and camera technicians.”
Sands’ view is shared by many in the industry including Rick
Senat, the former vice president of Warner Bros Europe, who is
chair for the museum and Lesley Hardcastle, who created MOMI,
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