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Hollywood loves a good shortcut, and sometimes that means a set piece or prop gets a whole second life in another movie. From classic monster labs to sci-fi gear, these recycled details helped shape some unforgettable scenes. Join us as we look at the most surprising cinematic hand-me-downs and the films that borrowed them.
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00:00Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most notable instances of a specially designed
00:06film prop or set later showing up in a different film.
00:09I'm not making that out too well. What is it, Hudson?
00:12You tell me, man. I only work here.
00:16Number 20. Incubator and Cadaver from The Curse of Frankenstein, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
00:22Hammer Film truly brought Frankenstein's monster to life with a sleekly engineered lab incubator in glorious Eastman color.
00:42The Curse of Frankenstein was bound to have more than a little influence on the unhinged horror fan Dr. Frankenfurter.
00:48So, The Rocky Horror Picture Show exhumed that same incubator and cadaver props from Bray Studios, then painted the tank
00:55red.
01:06Throw open the switches on the phonic oscillator.
01:11Frankenfurter must have worked out some other kinks if Rocky came out looking much better than Frankenstein's creation.
01:16Obviously, the main motivation for this transplant was to save money with a humble budget.
01:21But picking up the set piece shows the sincerity in Rocky Horror's love of Hammer Horror.
01:34Number 19. The Roman Forum from The Fall of the Roman Empire.
01:39A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum.
01:41Ancient Rome may have collapsed, but at least producer Samuel Bronston's replica survived.
01:55The Fall of the Roman Empire was so epic that it constructed a 92,000 square meter city forum outside
02:01of Madrid.
02:02It was the largest outdoor film set ever built up to 1964.
02:06And Bronston had it torn down following the film's disappointing theatrical run.
02:22Luckily, enough real estate was left in his studio for the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened
02:28on the Way to the Forum.
02:30This cult musical comedy was hardly the most reverent installment in Hollywood's then declining trend of Roman epics.
02:35But at least it found more profitable use of Bronston's folly.
02:39Not to mention the rest. Even I am impressed!
02:43Number 18. Helmets from Starship Troopers. Planet of the Apes.
02:47Take your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty human!
02:54Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi flop might have been more immediately successful if it didn't spend so much on the production
03:01values.
03:02After all, Ellen Mirajnik's costume designs for Starship Troopers were worthy of a reboot for a major Hollywood franchise.
03:07Kill them! Kill them all!
03:16Come on!
03:20The mobile infantry armor would later be refurbished and modified for the patrolling primates of Tim Burton's Planet of the
03:26Apes.
03:26It's a little easier to recognize the critique of fascism when the wardrobe symbolizes hunting humans instead of extraterrestrial worms.
03:33With Fox modifying the costumes yet again for Alliance troops on the TV show Firefly, Mirajnik must have had a
03:39real eye for dystopian military fashion.
03:41Number 17.
03:42The Paris Opera House from The Phantom of the Opera.
03:45The Muppets.
03:45Universal's iconic Stage 28 was built from studio president Carl Laemmle's love for the Paris Opera House during a 1922
03:52vacation.
03:53Three years later, a replica was unveiled just for the seminal silent thriller The Phantom of the Opera.
04:11That was until they wanted to showcase the Muppet Theater as grandly as possible 86 years later.
04:182011's The Muppets not only modifies Universal's jewel for its own universe,
04:22but amplifies the haunted quality of a delinquent TV set.
04:25The Muppets.
04:40After further renovation, both The Muppet Show and Stage 28 look more spectacular than ever.
04:45Looking behind the magic only makes this finale's message of honoring film history feel more special.
05:06We're honoring film history and anything else you want to know about pop culture.
05:10Scan the QR code to find more splendor on the 24-7 Ms. Mojo livestream.
05:15Jack Black, 15 seconds to curtain, Mr. Black.
05:19Hi.
05:20Ah, where am I?
05:21Why am I so fancy?
05:23What are you doing?
05:24You're ruining my look!
05:25Yeah, well, we'll see you out there.
05:26Number 16.
05:27Sets from Diary of a High School Bride.
05:30A Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors.
05:33Tim Evans was a murderer all in his prison cell.
05:39And those who read about his crimes lay damned as soul to hell.
05:45What distinguished Roger Corman among most thrifty filmmakers was that he was inspired by his set recycling.
05:51The most discussed monument to that was The Yellow Door, a beatnik cafe in a bucket of blood that utilized
05:57designs from Burt Topper's Diary of a High School Bride.
06:00I'm a fool and now I know. I'm a fool so here I go, oh yeah.
06:05The set was then scheduled to be torn down following these 1959 productions.
06:10So, Corman's team quickly redressed it as Mushnick's flower shop for another horror comedy, with minimal delay in the demolition.
06:17What did I tell you? You wouldn't be interested in selling a half-interest to this place, huh?
06:21Mr. Mushnick, we talked to the committee and they said we could use your flower.
06:25On the float.
06:26And guess what?
06:27We're going to feature Audrey Jr.
06:29Right on top.
06:29Can't you just picture it?
06:31I can picture it.
06:32Oh, won't the people just eat it up?
06:34Eat up the people.
06:35And we're going to have the big part of it open.
06:37This gave The Little Shop of Horrors just two days and a night to shoot interior scenes.
06:41It was Cormanian economics at their finest, and it made these unlikely cult classics even more impressive.
06:48Number 15. Dental Tools from Little Shop of Horrors, Batman.
06:52Open wide, here I come!
06:56I am your damn tabler, son.
06:59And I enjoy the career that I've picked.
07:02Warner Brothers bumped up the budget for the musical remake of Roger Corman's The Little Shop of Horrors.
07:07This probably helped the studio tighten the budget on a superhero blockbuster three years later.
07:12Little Shop played up Oren Scrivello's dental sadism with a tray full of macabre tools to maximize pain.
07:18They look like something a supervillain surgeon would use.
07:21So, when Jack Napier undergoes treatment for chemical burns in Tim Burton's Batman, those same tools turn him into the
07:27Joker.
07:27Do you understand that the nerves were completely severed, Mr. Napier?
07:36Do you see what I have to work with here?
07:40It can't be a coincidence that one of Jack Nicholson's first roles was as a patient of the evil dentist
07:45in Corman's Little Shop.
07:47The actor clearly has a wicked sense of humor.
07:49Oh, goody-goody, here it comes.
07:57Number 14.
07:58Jungle from the Most Dangerous Game, King Kong.
08:01No wonder he was so sure.
08:03This island's no bigger than a deer park.
08:07RKO staged two jungle nightmares simultaneously on one Depression-era budget.
08:11It was a hulking task for producers Marion C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedzak,
08:16with the latter directing the Most Dangerous Game alongside Irving Pitchell.
08:19But surely you don't think that anyone who has hunted leopards would follow you into that ambush?
08:26Meanwhile, Cooper and Schoedzak directed King Kong on the same jungle set with much of the same crew.
08:31The Hollywood thriller would be changed forever when audiences visited Count Zaroff's hunting grounds and Skull Island roughly half a
08:38year apart.
08:46Granted, King Kong wildly outsized the Most Dangerous Game in terms of profitability.
08:51But those who do catch both classics should be too daunted by the groundbreaking monster effects to notice the familiar
08:57habitat.
09:01Is there a signal from Driscoll or not?
09:02Yes, sir.
09:03Number 13.
09:04Flying Cars from Blade Runner and The Last Starfighter.
09:07Back to the Future Part 2.
09:25Sadly, fleets of flying cars weren't built by 2015 like Back to the Future Part 2 figured they would be.
09:31In fact, they weren't even built for Back to the Future Part 2.
09:34When Marty McFly arrives in the future Hill Valley,
09:37he spots the spinner from Blade Runner and the star car from The Last Starfighter.
09:41Or replicants, if Blade Runner fans prefer.
09:56Car builder Gene Winfield worked on all three films and lent authenticity to Back to the Future's sci-fi love
10:02letter by planting his most iconic creations as Easter eggs.
10:05It's a neat touch, even if he couldn't figure out how to get the cars to actually fly.
10:09Number 12.
10:11Little Friend in Scarface.
10:12Heartbreak Ridge and Predator.
10:19We first said hello to Tony Montana's Colt M16A1 in Brian De Palma's Scarface, but it wasn't goodbye.
10:27John Zemansky built the prop by fitting an authentic AR-15 with a fake M203 grenade launcher.
10:32The real, destructive device can't be purchased without special licensing.
10:43This rig was then sold to Stembridge Gun Rentals, Hollywood's go-to armory at the time,
10:48and resurfaced in Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge.
10:51It was more famously used in 1987's Predator.
11:03Stembridge also provided Arnold Schwarzenegger with the minigun in both that film and Terminator 2 Judgment Day.
11:09Still, while we may be tired of Al Pacino's climactic one-liner, his little friend was the most reliable blowout.
11:20Number 11.
11:22Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet.
11:24Multiple Hollywood projects.
11:30Welcome to Altair 4, gentlemen.
11:33I am to transport you to the residence.
11:36MGM's prop department built one of the most sophisticated prop characters of the 1950s for the sci-fi adventure Forbidden
11:43Planet,
11:43costing roughly $125,000.
11:47Robbie the Robot couldn't be properly rivaled in Hollywood for years.
11:50So, the studio made the most of their investment with the 1957 spinoff The Invisible Boy and multiple TV shows.
11:57Too often, man becomes clever instead of becoming wise.
12:00He becomes inventive but not thoughtful.
12:03And sometimes, as in the case of Mr. Whipple, he can create himself right out of existence.
12:08Other studios built replicas before the original prop sale and restoration allowed for appearances in movies like Gremlins.
12:15Pardon me, sir.
12:17Stuff?
12:18Sick and heavy?
12:20Would 60 gallons be sufficient?
12:23Finally, Robbie wound up auctioned off to a private collector in 2017 for a record $5.38 million.
12:31That's probably not an outrageous price for a six-figure creation that paid off for the whole industry for six
12:37decades.
12:39480 pints, as you requested.
12:45Total, 60 gallons.
12:46Number 10.
12:47A jet from True Lies.
12:49The Avengers.
12:50Who said a jet couldn't be wrecked multiple times?
12:52He is a little rusty right now, but that's a trademark capture tape-off.
12:56I gotta be honest with you.
12:57It's like riding to five.
12:58You never forget, really.
13:00A 1994 Harrier jump jet was originally constructed for use in the Arnold Schwarzenegger action classic True Lies.
13:07The aerial vehicle saw plenty of use during that film's climax.
13:10You're fired.
13:15It was dusted off and brought back to screen nearly 20 years later for the Avengers.
13:20In the iconic superhero film, both Hulk and Thor damage it during the helicarrier sequence.
13:36Today, the pieces of that original jet live on in the Volo Auto Museum in Illinois.
13:42Thanks to the hard work of the museum staff, the jet has been restored and bears insignias from both films.
13:53Number 9.
13:54The submarine from Das Boot.
13:56Raiders of the Lost Ark.
14:04Exterior shots are important for establishing a setting, the scene's mood,
14:08and for informing audiences where the characters are before interior shots further flesh out that information.
14:14Movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark wowed us again and again with great exterior shots.
14:19What's happening? We have most important friends.
14:20Holy shit.
14:24I sent my man for you. You and the girl must disappear. We have a place in the hall. Come
14:27on, go, go, go.
14:28During this classic adventure film, we get an imposing look at the outside of a submarine.
14:33Surprisingly, the budget made it tricky for director Steven Spielberg to get access to a submarine at first.
14:38This prompted him to ask the crew behind the action drama Das Boot to borrow their sub.
14:43They agreed, and the rest was a little bit of film history trivia.
15:00It pays to have friends in high places, especially in Hollywood.
15:04Case in point, Robert Rodriguez, who looked to his colleague Quentin Tarantino for some assistance when shooting Sin City.
15:11Not only did the mind behind Pulp Fiction direct the memorable pit scene, he also lent his friend a very
15:16important set of props.
15:31The swords that Devin Aoki's Miho wields in Sin City came from Kill Bill Vol. 1.
15:36They reportedly belonged to members of the latter films, the Crazy 88 Gang.
15:50In an effort to further connect the films, Tarantino said that within the world of Sin City,
15:55Miho's swords were made by Kill Bill's legendary swordsmith, Hattori Hanzo.
16:14Number 7. Fox Plaza from Die Hard.
16:17Multiple Hollywood projects.
16:22While many sets are built specifically for a film, there are occasions where a specific location has so much character
16:29that multiple movies want to shoot there.
16:31Fox Plaza is one of those legendary sites.
16:34The lobby of this Los Angeles skyscraper served as the entry point for Die Hard's iconic Nakatomi Plaza back in
16:401988.
16:41Fox Plaza would later double as the KPPX radio station in 1994's Airheads.
16:46Oh yeah! That was for all you pinheads out there, too hip to take off your leather jackets in this
16:5295 degree heat.
16:53And in the same year, it made a memorable cameo in the opening to Speed.
17:06Even Detective Jake Peralta geeks out at the building during an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
17:11Nakatomi Plaza.
17:13It's the most important monument in all of America.
17:15The building from Die Hard. Can we go in? Can we pay our specs?
17:18Number 6. Sets from Dark City.
17:21The Matrix.
17:22Listen to me, John. You have their power. You can make things happen by will alone.
17:26They call it tuning. That is how they make the buildings change.
17:30Many film fans have mused about how The Matrix seems to be both stylistically and thematically similar to a movie
17:36that was released a year earlier, Dark City.
17:39Both films have dark neo-noir settings, and both films have characters question the nature of their respective realities.
17:50However, the similarities actually go even further than that.
17:54The Matrix actually recycled physical sets like staircases from Dark City.
17:58The rooftop Trinity famously jumped off also appears in Dark City.
18:12Given all the similarities between the films, is there any chance the two universes could cross over in the future?
18:18You take the red pill. You stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
18:25Number 5. Parts of the set from King Kong. Gone with the Wind.
18:29What's that?
18:31A gallant lads must have set fire to the warehouses near the depot.
18:34The burning of Atlanta scene in Gone with the Wind was a pivotal one for this 1939 classic.
18:39The sequence demanded a lot of moving parts, skill, and hard work to execute.
18:44Did you know that the scene also did a little housekeeping for the storage crew over at MGM?
18:49It turns out that old movie sets were set ablaze during the sequence.
18:52The large gates that appeared in the iconic 1933 monster movie King Kong were included in the burning wreck.
19:05We're not sure if burning parts of iconic sets for the sake of another movie is worth it.
19:11However, we have to admit that the end results sure looked epic on screen.
19:23Number 4. Acton Lane Power Station from Aliens. Batman.
19:27Let's go people Hudson. You got the point. Picks, watch our tails. Nice and easy.
19:32They say that one person's trash is another person's treasure.
19:36But does that also apply to movie locations?
19:39We'll allow it because Acton Lane Power Station gave us interior shots for not one, but two classic films.
19:45Tracker's off-scale, man. They're all around us, man. Jesus.
19:50Maybe they don't show up on your forehead at all.
19:57After the defunct London Coal Station closed in 1983, James Cameron saw it as the perfect place to turn into
20:04an alien lair for his 1986 action classic Aliens.
20:07The power station returned again for the interior shots of Axis Chemicals.
20:11This fictional location is well known for being the spot where one Jack Napier would transform into the Joker.
20:26Number 3. Los Angeles Fire Station No. 23 from the Ghostbusters franchise.
20:31Multiple Hollywood projects.
20:33Hey, does this pole still work?
20:38Wow, this place is great. When can we move in? You've got to try this pole.
20:44We just love it when cool-looking buildings like Los Angeles' Fire Station No. 23 get a brand new lease
20:49on life up on the big screen.
20:51The real-life location was once known as the Taj Mahal of firehouses due to its bougie decor and layout.
20:57After Fire Station No. 23 was officially closed in 1960, it was used as a filming location for a little
21:03movie called Ghostbusters.
21:05Ghostbusters, what do you want?
21:07While its appearance in that franchise is its best-known role, the lobby was actually reused years later in The
21:12Mask.
21:13Hey, you! Bring around the loner.
21:17A loner? A loner.
21:20Beyond that, Fire Station No. 23 has also appeared in Flatliners, and that most decorated of law enforcement comedies, Police
21:28Academy 2.
21:29Matt, you never saw a man wash his hair before?
21:32Oh. Can't we saw it? I'll be in my room if you need me.
21:37Number 2. The PKE meter prop from the Ghostbusters franchise.
21:41Multiple Hollywood projects.
21:42This is hot, Ray.
21:44Symmetrical book stacking.
21:46Just like the Philadelphia Man's Tribulance of 1947.
21:50You're right, no human being would stack books like this.
21:54Speaking of Ghostbusters, there's just something iconic about the PKE meter design.
21:59So much so that it was actually reused in other movies.
22:02John Carpenter's brilliant action satire, They Live, was the first to reuse the PKE in 1988 during that film's climax.
22:10I hear them on the 19th floor above me.
22:12Suburban Commando followed that example in 1991 when the meter showed up as a tracking device.
22:18We can find them with this. It zeroes in on the gun's electronic signal.
22:22A homing device? Great! Why didn't we just use this in the first place?
22:26Shut up.
22:27Hey, we can't blame other movies and shows for wanting to get in on that cool PKE design.
22:31But we just hope the Ghostbusters got a little financial kickback after people borrowed their designs.
22:41Before we continue, check out this single from Current, EDM Transformed.
22:47Check out the full track and album below.
22:55Number 1. Multiple Laboratory Items from Frankenstein.
22:59Young Frankenstein.
23:00It's alive! It's alive! It's alive!
23:05If you're gonna do a tribute, why not go all out?
23:08The team behind Mel Brooks' classic comedy Young Frankenstein did when they sought out Kenneth Strickfadden,
23:14the original prop and set designer from Frankenstein.
23:17He was able to supply Brooks with tons of props from the original Laboratory set that appeared in 1931's Frankenstein.
23:24The end results go a long way to making the Mel Brooks movie feel more authentic
23:28and helped it capture the mood of the original.
23:31Life, do you hear me?
23:34Give my creation life!
23:39After all, Young Frankenstein is more than just a parody.
23:42It's an ode to the classic monster movie genre that contains real items from horror history.
23:48Alive! It's alive!
23:52It's alive!
23:56What are some designs that you've spotted passing between pictures?
23:59Call them out in the comments.