The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 14, 2005, Page 11, Image 11
Spy-movie props pique interest
of CIA agents, museum visitors
By LUCY KAFANOV
KRT CAMPUS
A life of intrigue and adventure as
the next Agent 007 or sexy “Alias”
spy Sydney Bristow may be the stuff
of fiction, but the real props and
gadgets from such flicks and shows
are inspiring movie fanatics and
intelligence agencies alike.
Danny Biederman is one such
I fanatic. He knows just what
happened to those groovy glasses
worn by Mike Myers on the set of
“Austin Powers: International
Man of Mystery,” and he’s gotten
to fiddle around with radio
transmitters hidden in cigarette
packs, pens and shoes. That’s
because these items are his, along
with more than 4,000 gadgets and
props collected from popular spy
shows from the 1950s to today.
Biederman’s collection has been
on display in museums and
intelligence agencies across the
United States, and is now featured
in his book, “The Incredible
World of Spy-Fi: Wild and Crazy
Spy Gadgets, Props, and Artifacts
from TV and the Movies.”
(Chronicle Books, $19.95). At a
recent book-signing event at a
Barnes & Noble in Washington,
D.C., Biederman had a chance to
show off some of the most popular
items from his collection.
“For the past several decades,
since,1970, I’ve been on a hunt in
my spare time basically looking for
these things,” said Biederman, a spy
show enthusiast who is now an
internationally recognized expert in
spy pop fiction. “And it’s been a
hobby because it’s just something
that has captured my imagination.
In my book, I tell not only the stories
of each of these shows and movies
and what they were all about, but
also I interweave my stories about
how I found the props.”
Since he was 10, Biederman
began saving money by babysitting
and washing cars in order to buy
some of the merchandise from his
favorite shows. Toy props soon
turned into the real thing as
Biederman discovered Hollywood
movie studio auctions. At MGM’s
1970 auction where items like
Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the
“Wizard of Oz” were sold,
Biederman snagged several pieces
from his favorite show, “The Man
from U.N.C.L.E.”
“I found the Thursh uniforms
— the enemy of U.N.C.L.E. —
for like $5 a piece. Being a kid, I
grabbed what 1 could given that I
only had $30 or $40 in my
pocket,” Biederman said. “It
opened up a new world for me
where I thought, ‘wow I can get
the real things that these actors
used’ and I’ve been doing that ever
since.”
While Biederman’s obsession
with the international men and
women of mystery never resulted
in success as the next Pierce
Brosnan, it did lead him to try his
skills from behind the camera.
After several attempts to write and
direct homemade spy flicks, 16
year-old Biederman managed to
snag an interview with Sean
Connery, on the set of “Diamonds
are Forever,” as a part of his
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called “A Spy for All Seasons.”
“It totally took over my life and
I didn’t know that this many years
later that I’d be still dealing with
spy stuff,” Biederman said. “But it
inspired me to become a writer and
then a filmmaker.”
Although the gadgets featured in
spy flicks or TV shows may be the
stuff of science fiction, they have
not gone unnoticed by intelligence
agencies both here and abroad.
“These movies were watched
with great interest, not just by the
American intelligence service but
by the Russian service as well,” said
Bob Wallace, former director of the
CIA’s Office of Technical Service
from 1998 to 2002, who wrote the
introduction to Biederman’s book.
“There was a sense among some of
the Russian technical people that
they believed much of the gadgets
on the shows were actual
capabilities that existed out there.”
Wallace said that the spy movies
and shows were also watched for
their inspiration, whether in the
creation of new gadget designs or
PHOTO COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS
Danny Biederman, collector of spy movie props, has had his collections
on display in museums and intelligence agencies across the nation.
ror innovative disguise ideas.
“When 1 was dir'Ttor of the
OTS, I told my folks that they
could go any of these movies and
charge the ticket as an official
expense because this is the
imagination,” Wallace said. “The
kinds of things that Danny has
shown here, many times the only
reason that we didn’t have them
was because the physics and the
technology hadn’t caught up. Yet
the ideas were exactly what you
would use in the espionage service,
so yes the (shows) did have an
influence on us.”
At the book-signing event,
Biederman talked about the
difficulty of obtaining some of the
props because of a lack of interest
in preservation on the production
companies’ side.
“The production companies’
interest is in reusing things to save
money in men productions,
Biederman said. “They don’t look
at props as their collectibles, instead
the props will either get thrown into
a pile or into a warehouse, or they
will get broken down and reused,
refurbished and repainted or they’ll
just get thrown in the trash.”
Biederman also explained that
finding a specific prop is difficult as
moviemakers often make several
versions of the same item.
“You never make one prop in a
movie — you make several,”
Biederman said. “Plus if the prop
had more than one function, you
make several of so that they will all
look identical but each one will do
different things.”
When asked what prop he
wished to find most, Biederman
names the Cone of Silence, a prop
from the 1960s spy comedy, “Get
Smart.”
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