Museums in the Movies: What to watch until museums reopen (and maybe even after).

I have been working for several years on compiling a list of movies that have scenes set in museums, and it occurs to me that some of you might be looking for film suggestions while museums are closed and you are isolating at home. My current list has 125 films on it, from which I have selected fourteen, plus a cartoon extra, a documentary, two music videos, and some TV shows. This list does not include some of the most familiar titles like The DaVinci Code (2006) or the Night at the Museum series (2006, 2009 and 2014), and you will be relieved to know that it also doesn’t include a new sub-genre I have discovered: “teen-gore-slasher movies set in museums.” Jen Kramer, my friend and colleague from Harvard, is working with me to put the background info, plus some clips, stills, and the full list into a website. Suggestions are welcome. Thanks to all of you who have already alerted me to films. Wash your hands before digging into the popcorn! Movies in Chronological Order 1932:   The Mummy             The first of several dozen movies in which monsters are on the loose in museum galleries. It begins at an Egyptian archaeological site run by the British Museum and stars Boris Karloff in one of his most iconic roles. 1938:   Bringing Up Baby             A hilarious turn by Cary Grant as a paleontologist working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York (which is disguised here as the “Stuyvesant Museum of Natural History,” but uses the AMNH façade). 1949:   On the Town             Great tunes and great dancing, but very dated ideas of museums. Ann Miller’s big tap number is aces, but Yikes! 1964:   Topkapi             Melina Mercouri (later the Greek Minister of Culture and leading proponent of returning the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum to Greece) leads a bumbling effort to rob the national museum in Istanbul. 1964:   The Train             The opening before the credits is spine tingling! Paul Scofield plays a Nazi officer who loves art, and is taking a train filled with stolen French impressionist paintings from Paris to Germany before WWII ends. Interesting philosophical questions are raised about the role of art in defining a national identity, and the value of paintings vs. human lives 1967:   To Sir with Love             Sidney Poitier plays the best of all possible high school teachers, working in a tough London neighborhood (or I should say neighbourhood for my family currently quarantined in England). He takes his students on a visit to the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum, while Lulu sings the theme song. 1975:   Murph the Surf (aka Live a Little, Steal a Lot)             This is a surprisingly good little heist film with the recently departed Robert Conrad in the title role. It is based on an actual robbery at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (No wonder they haven’t let a film crew in their galleries in decades—not even Night at the Museum, in which the filmmakers painstakingly replicated the AMNH galleries in a studio in Vancouver.) 1980:   The Awakening             While not exactly a good film, this Charleton-Heston-as-archaeologist epic is notable for being the first film with footage actually filmed in the Cairo Museum. (Other films like Karloff’s The Mummy, and Brendan Fraser’s 1999 film of the same name, have scenes that show almost identical exteriors of the museum, but the interiors were filmed on sets.) 1993:   Demolition Man             Wesley Snipes plays Simon Phoenix, a twentieth-century criminal so violent that he has to be put into a permanent cryogenic stasis. Sylvester Stallone plays a similarly violent cop, John Spartan, who gets the same treatment. When Phoenix is accidentally thawed in a benign and peaceful future, no one can deal with him except a defrosted Spartan. Phoenix wants weapons and the only place he can find them is in a wonderfully conceived futuristic museum.   1997:   The Relic             Two important museum themes come together here: 1) museums are places where snobs congregate at soirées, and 2) monsters are on the loose! The book on which this is based is set at the American Museum of Natural History but they declined to participate, so the Field Museum in Chicago is the star. Even though the museum director knows there is a monster killing people in the basement, the important gala with the mayor must go on! 1997:   Bean (aka Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie)             There are so many really clever bits in this, but the scene where the marketing folks pitch ideas about Whistler’s Mother-related items for the gift shop is especially hilarious. 2001:   Rat Race             Spoiler Alert: “The Barbie Museum” is not what the family expects. 2018:   Black Panther             Vibranium artifacts from Wakanda are violently repatriated from “The Museum of Great Britain.” This obvious stand in for the British Museum is actually a computer-generated sign in front of the exterior of the High Museum in Atlanta. I was immediately suspicious when the curator entered the gallery with a cup of coffee! 2018:   Museo             This Spanish-language film is currently only available on YouTube’s premium channel, but it is worth trying a free introductory membership just to see it. Based on an actual event, the wonderful Gael García Bernal (from Mozart in the Jungle) stars as a bored young man who robs the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. The aftermath of guilt and confusion when the artifacts can’t be fenced is beautifully developed, and the moment he realizes the treasures might actually go to Britain because of his actions is especially poignant. Cartoon:  In movie theaters in “the old days,” a cartoon short often preceded the feature. For your amusement I recommend Betty Boop’s Museum from 1932, readily available in a Google search. Our heroine visits a museum in a classical building with a surprise inside. Documentary: I highly recommend The Rape of Europa (2006), a terrific documentary on the Nazi looting of works of art during WWII. You will find here the basis of the later fictionalized movies The Monuments Men (2014) and Woman in Gold (2015). P.S. Don’t bother with The Monuments Men, it is a rotten movie and the documentary features interviews with the actual guys, who went on to become prominent art historians and museum directors after the war.  Music Videos: 1966:   Color Me Barbara             This may be the first music video ever made. Barbara Streisand struts through the Philadelphia Museum of Art singing. 2019:   Apeshit             Beyonce and JayZ had incredible access to the Louvre in making this video, which is filmed in several galleries. Television: The British series “Inspector Lewis” made great of use of actual museums in Oxford, where the stories are set. In various episodes our heroes DCI Robbie Lewis and DS James Hathaway go to the Natural History Museum to get expert advice, look at crime-related clues in the Ashmolean, and solve murders that take place in the museum-adjacent Bodleian Library and Botanic Garden. Museums are also used as the settings for various social events. Here is a brief rundown: Season 1, Episode 1: “Whom the Gods Would Destroy” has a visit to the Ashmolean. Season 1, Episode 3: “Expiation.” Crazy Hugh Mallory has murdered his wife and now intends to kill his two daughters and himself by hurling them from a high window at the Natural History Museum. Season 2, Episode 1: “And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea” has another excellent Ashmolean scene, where our detectives find an art student looking at the way John Constable painted clouds. Season 2, Episode 7: In “The Point of Vanishing” a postcard of a fifteenth- century painting at the Ashmolean (“The Hunt in the Forest” by Paolo Uccello) provides a clue that must be followed up at the museum. A helpful docent explains vanishing points to our heroes. Season 4, Episode 7: “The Gift of Promise” sets an awards presentation for an educational organization in the Natural History Museum. And Season 5, Episode 2: “Wild Justice” features a wedding reception at the Ashmolean (where, unfortunately the groom is murdered). Season 5, Episode 3: “Fearful Symmetry” includes one of my favorite exchanges between the two detectives. One of the suspects is a photographer whose work is being mounted at the Ashmolean in an exhibit called: “Fallen?: A Meditation on Post-Lapsarian Female Gender Identity.” Sergeant Hathaway has to explain this to Inspector Lewis: “Professional iconoclast, social photo anthropologist-cum-cultural pundit,” he says. Lewis: “Oxford-type then?” Hathaway: “Oh yeah.” Season 7, Episode 1: “Down Among the Fearful” features a return to the Natural History Museum to consult an expert about lethal drugs and euthanasia. Extra! Endeavour, the prequel to Inspector Morse (of which Inspector Lewis is a sequel), filmed a scene in the Pitt-Rivers Museum in Oxford. Morse and his superior, Detective Inspector Thursday, interview Dr. Moharram Shoukry, who tells them he is “on loan from the Cairo Museum, together with some of the visiting exhibits.” Thursday: “So you mind all the bits and pieces?” Shoukry: “If by that you mean do I make sure no harm befalls the priceless artifacts of my people’s ancient history, then yes, I mind the bits and pieces.” Thursday: “No slight was intended Doctor.” Shoukry: “With the British, it never is.” (Season 5, episode 2: “Cartouche”) Finally, while Ross is an archaeologist who works at the American Museum of Natural History in Friends, the series never really took advantage of developing his interesting job and he sometimes makes seriously cringe-worthy comments about the field. The only episode that actually takes place in the museum is awful! I don’t recommend it, but it does have a clever response shot from a group of school children and a nun. If you are now too curious to resist, it is from 1996, Season 2, Episode 15: “The One Where Ross and Rachel… You Know.” © Mary Malloy www.marymalloy.net 2020