Mad Props (2024)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on April 16, 2024 @ tonymacklin.net.

I once was on the cutting edge of a movie phenomenon. It was a time when cinema was starting to be considered a potential art form, not just an escapist experience.

Now movies offer a new, vibrant cutting edge - memorabilia. What were once considered worthless throw-aways after a film was completed are now valuable artifacts that offer personal enthrallment and potential wealth.

Props are on the present cutting edge. It's a new world.

I'm not a collector. The only movie prop I have is a bullet from Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

But I have vivid memories of the past when as a boy I rode my bicycle on the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey, on Sunday evening. It was deserted, but the Moorlyn Theater put up its posters for coming attractions.

I guess I had the movie bug even then.

When I taught in the English Department at the University of Dayton, it just seemed smart to teach courses on movies. Few universities did. Some alumni sternly complained that the film courses did not belong. Prop them.

[I was one of two American academics that the British journal Sight and Sound included in its decadal poll of the films of all-time.]

So I can relate to collector Tom Biolchini, the featured collector in the indie documentary Mad Props (Prime, Apple, etc.).

Tom Biolchini lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma with his wife and two children. He's no isolated geek. He was a lawyer, turned banker, and we go on his journey to meet fellow collectors, curators, and creators world-wide. He travels to auctions and sites in as far away as France and Italy

Biolchini is an amiable collector. Many times he cries with glee "No Way," when he sees props and displays. And, "Cool."

Tom and his son watch an auction on the internet which reaches a one million dollar bid. He takes part in some auctions by phone from his yard in Tulsa.

He bids $140,000 for Wilson, the volleyball in Cast Away (2000). Wilson later sold for $308,000. He refuses to bid $75,000 for the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Then at the last minute he did make the bid and got it for that amount.

He also has the gag ball from Pulp Fiction (1994) in his collection. And during the film he wins the Sports Almanac from Back to the Future, Part 2 (1985).

He takes part in person at the auction at the Prop Store in London.

And he visits Amalgamated Dynamics where he meets actors Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street series) and Lance Henriksen (Aliens, 1986). They share memorable tales of their screen exploits. Aliens is one of the most popular sources of props.

Mad Props is well directed by Juan Pablo Reinoso, but it seems propped between generations. It's an almost totally male-oriented movie. Tom's wife and mother appear, but no female collectors do. There are two sisters that own a jacket from Blade Runner (1982) kept by their father, but that's about it.

Most of the men seem to share the idea that they don't tell everything to their wives. "I want to stay married," one admits.

An important female figure in Mad Props is Susan Neal, executive director of the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa.

Tom visits her and shows her the ghost trap from Ghostbusters 2 (1989).

Throughout the film he has espoused, "I view movie props as art." She agrees.

Whether movie props reach the level of art is debatable, but the emotional value of them isn't.

As Tom says, "It's like owning a memory."

Cool.