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1970 - A Decade of Change A new decade opening before us, full of promise for wonderful things! It was true, the '70s was a non-stop rollercoaster of cool things one after another. It might be arguably said the '70s (at least in Southern California) was the greatest decade for conventions! MGM Unloads One of the most exciting things to happen was the MGM Auction, April of 1970. the studio planned to clean house from 60 years of filmmaking by unloading thousands upon thousands of props, costumes, artworks, models, weapons, miniatures and basically, . I had been to many premieres at the studio theater, but this was an adventure and chance to get a glimpse of the studio's back lots. The event spanned several days, beginning with a giant rummage sale of costumes, costume sketches and hand-props. A giant sound stage was literally packed with years of costumes, many were eminently recognizable and all were tagged. Costumes from "Gone with the Wind", endless civil war soldier costumes, Myrna Loy's headpiece from "Mask of Fu Manchu" and others too numerous to mention. I was too late for the "Forbidden Planet" hand blasters, the Brooks Brothers were fighting over them and some of the costumes. I managed to pick up a "Forbidden Planet" shirt, several costume sketches, a necklace from Claudette Colbert's "Cleopatra", and a sword from "Ben Hur". There were piles of costumes going for $1 each, such as the "Lollypop Guild" costumes and the Scarecrow from "Wizard of Oz", all of which sold for thousands on eBay years later. On the day of the auction, to keep out the riff-raff, everyone purchased a $100 bidders number, which, should you not win anything would be refunded. The main item on everyone's dance card was The Time Machine and there it was, parked near the idol from "The Prodigal" and "Atlantis, The Lost Continent". You can see Tom Scherman's control panel was still in place from the Lytton exhibit back in 1964. (Quick Refresher HERE). There were rows upon rows of miniatures: galleons, submarines (20 feet long), zeppelins, airplanes, tanks and scads of statues.

The Time Machine & Prodigal Demon Statue	The Time Machine	Submarine from Atlantis, the Lost Continent
Much of the sought after material was from "The Wizard of Oz": Dorothy's gingham dress, the warrior guard costumes and lances, the witch's hat and fateful hourglass but particularly the Ruby Slippers. One day during the event, Mike Hyatt and I borrowed a couple of studio bicycles and gave ourselves a day tour of the back lot on the now deserted property. It's a good thing too as I probably got the last pictures of a few memorable items. One being the full sized dragon mock-up that squashed Buddy Hackett in "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm", the command set from "Ice Station Zebra"and of all the wacky things, the statue of Jonathan Winters as Wilbur Glenworthy from "The Loved One".

Sailin' the Cinematic Seas!	Bicycling the Lot	The Grimm Dragon

Ice Station Zebra	Rev. Wilbur Glenworthy	Bowery Street Scene
What Happened to All This Crap, Anyway? Many of the buyers ran amusement parks, miniature golf courses or business concerns that could use a few submarines livening up the ponds. The Atlantis submarine eventually wound up in the backyard of Forry Ackerman's Glendower residence for years until someone walked off with the front half and left Forry holding the tail. The Prodigal statue appeared in front of a store in Delaware, then wound up in a heap in New Jersey. The Time Machine sold for $5,000 to the Martinel Corporation along with the Atlantis sub and innumerable objects such as the hourglass from "Wizard of Oz", and spacesuits from "2001". They had a wacky plan of packing all their MGM swagger into three trailers and touring them around the country. The Ben Hur sword I kept all these years until finally putting it on Ebay in 2001. It was purchased and shipped to one of the Twin Towers a few days into September. It should have arrived on the 10th. I never received any feedback on the item and often wondered if the sword and the buyer perished the next day. And where did everything else wind up? The Trash! Well, not quite, read on. . .

Time Machine Being Refurbished by Mike Hyatt	The Sub, Freshly Halved for Shipping	Time Machine with One of the Original Smoking Jackets
One of three ill-fated trailers last seen abandoned alongside the Harbor Freeway. This is the point everything scattered.	This spot on hold till I find my shot of the sub in Forry's backyard
		The Prodigal Demon - Last Seen in New Jersey, 1999
But this was not the end of the Time Machine, oh no. While the machine disappears from this space time continuum, it will reappear sometime in the future. . .stay tuned. It's a Movie World I had been working at "Movieworld - Cars of the Stars" in Buena Park. Basically, a huge double warehouse operated by two different guys. "Planes of Fame" took half of the complex and displayed a great collection of restored WWII aircraft. "Movieworld" filled the other half with antique and custom cars, plus movie props, sets, odd antiques and other cool stuff. The Brucker family ran the place. James senior has a cranky old fart with a lotta dough. Jimmy, Jr. ran the place and had a knack for meeting people and finding things. He had a number of collections, from Samurai swords to switchblades and of course the car collection. Junior was also friends with artist Robert Williams and showcased much of his art on the premises which lead to a number of underground artists stopping by the museum like Robert Crumb and Rick Griffin. The courtyard in front was arrayed with cars and motorcycles to entice the unwary tourist. I can't tell you how cool it was driving these cars around the parking lot every morning. Cars from "The Great Race", the Great Leslie's "Leslie Special" and Professor Fate's "Hannibal 8". But the big thrill was hanging out with one of my early heroes, "Ed, Big Daddy Roth". He was not only showing many of his custom cars, but creating displays and signage. I grew up reading his "Car-Toons"magazine and trying to draw his Hot Rod Monsters. But Ed was on the downswing; had recently divorced and battling a number of demons. <The Beatnik Bandit In his spare time, he was working on a new car in the back of the property and it seems I was endlessly sanding this shapeless block of plaster into something I wouldn't be around to see finished. The MGM auction was now just a wacky memory, but the Bruckers in their wisdom, bought "Scavenging Rights" to everything they could haul away from the back lots which proved a stroke of genius. Everything left in these overgrown fields would soon be plowed asunder and condos built atop. Jimmy, Jr., Ed Roth and and I took a day in Culver City to wander the back lots and there was still plenty to see. Little more than post apocalyptic acres of street scenes, overgrown, uninhabited and desolate yet still intact were the steps leading to Tara. Bungalows filled with thousands of costumes never found in time for the rummage sale, shacks filled with orange crates, stuffed with scripts going back to the '30s all for the taking. Jimmy forbid my taking anything however, leaving it to the bulldozers; a damn shame. In the center of one particularly overgrown field lay strewn all the set pieces to "Forbidden Planet" rotting in the elements. There were the Control panels from Mobius' lab, the seated blaster units, the plastic directional bubble from the spaceship. Wading into shoulder high weeds to get a better look, I stumbled into Robby's transport vehicle, a complete shambles. We also found Robby himself, still crated, dusty and lonely.
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