My Car the Movie Star

[Bruce Adams]

I believe my Cabriolet should be in A CRIME TO REMEMBER Tuesday Evening , airing at 9 PM on "Investigative Discovery Channel" Episode "Paradise Lost"

[C26Pinelake]

Did they tell you it would be on? I have three cars that were in movies, the most famous is lead car in the movie and television series " Untouchables " ! Ask for a certificate or letter stating all the particulars. I have certificates signed by main actor listing name of movie, date, year and make of car and owner's name. Great for show and can't hurt the retail value of the car. Wayne

[jm29henry]

Cool congratulations

[Y-Blockhead]

That's neat Bruce. A few years back, My Town Sedan was in J. Edgar with Leonardo DiCaprio.

[Redbird]

Outstanding!

[todd3131]

Sponsored Links (Register now to hide all advertisements)

That is cool. I don't get that channel what was the story about?

[dr.j]

We had several of our Model A's in this film. Here is the Official Cinematic Trailer for - "Ming... Voice of Deception"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-19H9ULaBIg

[Capt Quahog]

Gee whiz . . . that looks to be a super fine automobile. For movie work, I'd be glued to that car all the time. In the old days, bits, pieces and sometimes entire vehicles would just disappear.

Many years ago, I worked as the "Picture Car Coordinator" for a "Major Motion Picture". As a Boston local who knew my way around the region, the production company hired me full time. Spent four months on Art Department pre-production work of all sorts. Did much research and assisted in drawing up plans for building sets. Hunted down props all over southern New England and filled box trucks full of stuff. With then long established contacts in the antique auto hobby, I was eventually assigned to handle the picture vehicles. Except for the cars that were to be wrecked or destroyed in a couple of gags, all the other rolling stock was rented from private people.

It was a period film taking place from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s. We ended up with a total of about 270 old vehicles. Remember one day out of the blue, the manic crazed director demanded that everything in each scene be toned down to make it all look bleak all the time. The art department people had these guys start spraying vintage cars, trucks and buses with some weird "water soluble" fake grime grunge stuff.

It was suppose to be harmless to the paint finishes. At once, I had serious doubts as to the coating of those privately owned cars. I was very vocal about it too, but ignored. The Hollywood types were oblivious to my protests and simply couldn't have cared less.

As it turned out, when many of the cars were eventually washed off, the special effects coating crap wrecked the paint jobs. What a mess! Some of the lacquer finishes on beautiful old Caddies and Packards was taken down to bare metal. Once the movie wrapped, they all left town and assigned me, the local yokel, to clean up their aftermath. My last job for the production company was to mitigate payments for damages. The repaint and repair jobs on most of the cars ran into big bucks with some fat checks in the five figure thousands of dollars eventually being cut.

The up side of the damaged movie car paint fiasco was that the production company provided me an all expense paid First Class air free trip out to California. Stayed in a nice hotel. Hung out at the Dino Delaurantis studios offices on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and squeezing them for every dime. The hired damage appraisers were surprisingly generous and actually protested non of the claims submitted. I did my best to make sure that the antique vehicle people were correctly compensated with something extra for their suffering.

Once done, for a couple of remaining days, I got to hang out with some (no name dropping) well known movie people. Schmoozed with the guys who'd I'd worked with for those many months. Hadn't realized until then, that with a few, we had become real friends. Lunched and dinnered and met other people. Had a blast! And yes the atmosphere then. . . was a gritty kind of glitzy such as fictionalized Hollywood of the movies with fast deals and vast sums of money changing hands. Thinking back, it was amazing how friendly and kind everybody was to me. Anyway, no doubt could have stayed and worked on another production. A famous character actor (one of the original Wild Bunch), now long departed then told me about a Steven Spielberg movie that was about to go into pre-production at Universal Studios. He had been hired for a roll in the film and said that if interested, a call could be made "over there". As it was, I was not lured by Hollywood and came back to my mundane east coast life.

Summing it up, it's likely that today in dealing with these smaller more tightly run movie and TV production outfits, the antique vehicle owner will get a much better deal and more cordial treatment.

[mshmodela]

Congrats, must have been fun to watch the filming.

[C26Pinelake]

A good idea is to insist that you be the driver. That way you get paid as a member of the cast, you know who is driving the car and you make sure it is not altered in any manner.
Also insist that no tobacco is smoked in the vehicle. In one of my gangster cars I got an extra $2500 for a cigar to be lit. Wayne