Movie Props That Had A Whole Other Life After Stardom

If you've ever seen the woodchipper scene in the 1996 dark comedy Fargo… well, you haven't ever forgotten it. 

And it seems the town of Fargo has leaned into the machine's fame. If you go to the Visitors Center in Fargo, ND, you can see the actual woodchipper used in the film. 

As an added bonus, they have a replica where you can pose with a severed leg sticking out of the machine. 

The cherry red 1964 Chevy Malibu featured in 1994's Pulp Fiction had sentimental value to director Quentin Tarantino because it was actually his car. 

Tarantino had bought the car in 1989 after selling the script for True Romance. He reportedly cherished the car so much he barely even drove it. All of this made it seemingly the perfect car for Vincent (played by John Travolta) in Pulp Fiction. 

However, either while filming or shortly after production had wrapped in 1994, the car was stolen. And it wasn't seen again until a cop caught some people trying to strip a car in 2013. 

It turned out that the VIN had been cloned to try and hide the fact that this was a stolen car. When its authenticity was proven, the car was given back to Tarantino. 

The Wizard of Oz has some of the most iconic costumes in the history of cinema. Dorothy's ruby slippers are to this day prominently displayed in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The Cowardly Lion costume, which is apparently made of real lion skin and fur, sold for more than $3 million in 2014.

Yet, it's Dorothy's subtle, blue and white gingham dress that's had one of the most dramatic journeys since the film was released in 1939.

The dress was gifted to Rev. Gilbert Hartke in 1973 by actress Mercedes McCambridge (though it's unclear how McCambridge got it). Hartke worked in the theater department at the Catholic University of America. But in the late '80s, the dress was lost, only to be discovered in 2021. 

After being found, the school decided to auction off the dress to help fund the drama department. However, it found itself in a legal battle with the family of Hartke, who claimed they were the rightful owners of the dress. 

Ultimately, it seems the school won the rights to the dress, which ended up selling for over $1.5 million.

Sometimes, famous movie props end up in the last place you'd expect - like the home of the Rosens in the Chicago suburbs. 

While the Rosens didn't have any ties to Hollywood, they ended up with a prized piece of cinema history: Mary Poppins's bottomless carpet bag.

So how did they come by the piece of luggage? They said they won a contest in the '60s. 

And while some families would have displayed the bag, the Rosens simply used it - as a bag - when they traveled. 

The Rosens eventually put the bag up for auction in 2010, where it sold for $95,000. 

In 1923, Cecil B. DeMille built one of the largest sets constructed at the time for his epic silent film The Ten Commandments. To truly capture the grandeur of the Egyptian temple, DeMille had 21 massive sphinxes built, along with intricate temple gates and larger than life statues. 

However, when filming had wrapped, DeMille didn't want to pay to haul the massive set pieces the 190 miles from the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes to Los Angeles. So, he just left them in the sand. 

Soon, the locals started taking pieces of the set to have as conversation pieces (the Santa Maria golf course had two of the sphinxes standing tall at their entrance for many years). The rest of the set was eventually covered by the shifting sands. 

Cut to almost a hundred years later, when archaeologists decided to do a dig in the area. And in their search, they discovered a 300-pound, largely intact sphinx head from the film.

At the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, we're led to believe that the ark was locked away in a warehouse that was seemingly miles long – likely to never be seen again. 

However, one man grew up using the ark to store his blankets. 

The man (who didn't give his name) brought the movie prop to the Antiques Roadshow, telling the appraiser that his father was an employee for a VFX studio and worked on the Indiana Jones films, as well as Star Wars. 

While the ark wasn't the one actually featured in the film, it was a prototype created to possibly test the pyrotechnics necessary for shooting. Since it was just a prototype, the finishes are rather rough; hot glue was used to create the embellishes and a picture frame serves as the lid. 

Despite the rough-and-ready finishes, the prototype was still estimated to be worth between $80,000 to $250,000.