Hollywood's Prop Shop

Rarely can you find a classic film that doesn’t include at least one of the following scenes: People smoking. Married couples sleeping in twin beds. Men wearing fedoras. Cuter-than-real-life kids. Diner waitresses serving up snappy comebacks. Folks using pay phones to call loved ones or bark at their bookies. Actors rocking that awful Mid-Atlantic accent as they sip cocktails in Art Deco penthouses.

But most of all – long before Twitter or Facebook – you are bound at some point to see a scene in which a newspaper advances the plot.

Sometimes, it’s papers coming off a massive printing press, or a huge headline spinning into focus. Other times, it’s a mobster reading about his own exploits from his hideout. Or maybe a character discovering something shocking – a kidnapping, murder, robbery – that springs them into action. Often, you’ll see a newsboy crying “Extra!” as he holds up a late edition on a busy street corner.

We’ve all seen newspapers in movies – but where do the ones we’ve seen really come from?

Not from a studio copy machine: It’s too much trouble to get legal clearances to use the names of actual publications. Instead, since 1915, the phony papers – and countless other big-screen props – have been made by the Earl Hays Press, a third-generation family business in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley.

I had no idea the company existed until eight years ago, when I stumbled across an article on the BBC site about “the factory of fake.” According to the Earl Hays site, “We carry more than 25,000 stock printed items available to the movie industry on request. We specialize in both modern and period items, including license plates, newspapers, books, driver’s licenses, passports, credit cards, product packaging, and so much more. There is no end to what we can create.”

To read more, check out the BBC article here.

Or if you’d rather watch a video, Adam Savage took a deeper dive into the Earl Hays treasure trove of print props on his YouTube channel, Adam Savage’s Tested. The story includes some totally cool finds from Casablanca – fast forward to 10:18 into the segment and stay through 13:05 for all the juicy details.

One final tidbit: Over the decades of newspaper scenes on film, there have been two headlines that have been recycled repeatedly: “New Tax Bill May Be Needed” and “Limited Farm Bill Favored,” shown in such classics as Modern Times, All the King’s Men, White Heat, A Place in the Sun, and even The Godfather. Look for them the next time you watch a movie. (Hat Tip to Gutbrain.com for the images.)