Random Behind the Scenes Stories of Famous Props (17 items)

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  (#8) Fargo

  • Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, William H. Macy, Peter Stormare, Harve Presnell, John Carroll Lynch, Kristin Rudrüd, Steve Reevis, Steve Park

  The Coen Brothers struck Academy gold with Fargo, their okey-dokey twist on the neo-noir in 1996. There is no doubt that the most iconic scene to come from the film featured a dead body and a wood chipper. The folks up in Fargo, ND have turned the wood chipper prop into a tourist attraction, with its very own Facebook page and all.

  The wood chipper may have only appeared on screen for a few seconds, but its legend will last forever.
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  (#5) Contagion

  • Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Jennifer Ehle, Bryan Cranston, Sanaa Lathan, John Hawkes, Demetri Martin, Elliott Gould, Enrico Colantoni, Larry Clarke, Anna Jacoby-Heron

  Despite what we all may think, we never actually see Gwyneth Paltrow's severed head in the box at the end of Seven (1995). Were we supposed to? Apparently, because a replica of the blonde beauty was made for the film. However, Brad Pitt told Entertainment Weekly in 2011 that he only agreed to do the film if the head stayed in the box. "With Se7en, I said, 'I will do it on one condition – the head stays in the box. Put in the contract that the head stays in the box.' 

  However, the prop got a second life a few years later when it was used in the Steven Soderbergh drama Contagion (2011). Paltrow's character is one of the first people to get infected with the film's deadly virus. There is an especially gruesome autopsy scene where her head is sliced opened in the name of science.
  
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  (#9) Jaws

  • Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Jonathan Filley, Ted Grossman, Chris Rebello

  Young, up-and-coming director Steven Spielberg pretty much invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws in 1974. But before the film became a monster box office smash and forever scared millions of swimmers away from the ocean, Spielberg nearly blew his opportunity to make his mark in cinema.

  The studio wanted Spielberg to use a real shark for the film, but the director defied the bigwigs' wishes. Instead, he opted to use a mechanical shark, which nearly sunk the film. Spielberg had three identical mechanical sharks made. They were nicknamed Bruce by the crew (Bruce was Spielberg's lawyer's name), and suffered legendary malfunctions, like sinking to the bottom of the ocean. They also had major motor issues due to the corrosive salt water.

  Spielberg had only one solution: he had to shoot less of the shark. Taking a page from Alfred Hitchcock, Spielberg enrolled in the "less is more" school of filmmaking.  “I had no choice but to figure out how to tell the story without the shark,” Spielberg said. “So I just went back to Alfred Hitchcock: ‘What would Hitchcock do in a situation like this?’...It’s what we don’t see which is truly frightening.” The sharks were such a pain that all three were destroyed after filming.
  
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  (#6) A Christmas Story

  • Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Ian Petrella, Scotty Schwartz, R. D. Robb, Tedde Moore, Yano Anaya, Zack Ward

  A Christmas Story (1983) has become a must-watch holiday film. The comedy's most popular prop is the leg lamp. Before A Christmas Story became a movie, it was a series of short stories by radio personality and writer Jean Shepherd. He wrote a fictionalized story of his father's obsession with a leg lamp called "My Man and the Lascivious Special Award that Heralded the Birth of Pop Art."

  Shepherd got the idea for the lamp from a Nehi Soda advertisement. This is how he described it in his story: "From ankle to thigh the translucent flesh radiated a vibrant, sensual, luminous orange-yellow-pinkish nimbus of Pagan fire. All it needed was tom-toms and maybe a gong or two. And a tenor singing in a high, quavery, earnest voice: ‘A pretty girl/Is like a melody…’"

  None of the three original leg lamps from the film's production currently exist. They all broke during filming. However, if you're looking to buy a replica, they are everywhere on the Internet. Different models and price points are available at the A Christmas Story House Gift Shop in Cleveland, Ohio.
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  (#12) The Maltese Falcon

  • Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Gladys George, Barton MacLane, Sydney Greenstreet, Lee Patrick, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook, James Burke, Murray Alper, John Hamilton, Walter Huston, Emory Parnell, Robert E. Homans, Creighton Hale

  There is perhaps no more iconic movie prop than the Maltese Falcon, the legendary black statue from John Huston's 1941 film noir of the same name. "What is it?" "The stuff that dreams are made of."

  The prop was lost for a while, then suddenly reappeared in the 1980s to do a world tour. When it was put up for auction in 2013, Las Vegas billionaire Steve Wynn purchased the statue for $4.1 million, making the Falcon the most expensive film prop ever. But no one is quite sure whether Wynn has the actual piece used in the film or a replica.
  
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  (#3) Castaway

  • Oliver Reed, Amanda Donohoe, John Sessions, Frances Barber, Georgina Hale, Virginia Hey, Paul Reynolds, Todd Rippon, Sorel Johnson, Tony Rickards, Sean Hamilton, Len Peihopa

  When Wilson floated away from Chuck (Tom Hanks), it felt like the death of a beloved human character. Yes, he may have been just a volleyball, but that volleyball probably saved Chuck from dying a slow death due to loneliness while he was marooned on a deserted island. The iconic prop has become part of popular culture. One of the original Wilsons used in Cast Away (2000) sold for $18,400.

  The Wilson company also cashed in; they began selling volleyballs with the famous bloody hand print.

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