“There were some specific clocks we asked for,” says the writer, just in time for Back to the Future Day.
In the opening shot of Back to the Future, the audience is introduced to Emmett “Doc” Brown via his eclectic garage, which is packed with gadgets, some ripped of plutonium and of course, a lot of clocks — because, hello, foreshadowing.And of all the clocks, the one that seemingly stands out for being the most random features a Denver Broncos helmet. So, what’s the deal? Is Doc a Broncos fan? Was it a memento from a Denver visit? Screenwriter Bob Gale explains to The Hollywood Reporter the story behind all the clocks for Back to the Future Day (Oct. 21).
“There were some specific clocks we (Gale and director Robert Zemeckis) asked for, such as the Felix the Cat clocks, and we knew we had to have at least one cuckoo clock,” Gale tells THR. The cuckoo clock speaks for itself (is Doc a crackpot?), but the Felix clocks were important because both Gale and Zemeckis owned one in their youth. “They were very popular in the 50s (who knows, maybe even in the 40s, not sure when it hit the market),” explains Gale. “So anyone who collects clocks would absolutely have one or more of those. And it’s a perfect movie clock because it’s constantly and very clearly in motion.”
A Safety Last! clock is also featured (an homage to silent film star Harold Lloyd dangling from a huge clock, much the same way Christopher Lloyd’s Doc (no relation to Harold, but still a fun coincidence) does at the end of the film. “We knew we had to feature that,” Gale says.
But what about the Broncos clock? Well, that one has no hidden meaning — unless viewers want it to have one.
Gale explains: “It was just something the set dressers or props people found, it was interesting so we put it in the movie. Is Doc a football fan or a Broncos fan? We know he’s a baseball fan, so he could be a football fan. Or maybe he acquired it on a trip to Denver. We know he’s not from Denver, but maybe his mother was (his father, remember, was German and originally Von Braun). Clearly, we can invent many backstories out of a single prop, so in honor of BTTF day, I encourage readers to submit their own reasons why Doc would have this clock!”
Film Historian John Bengtson has been leading the campaign to recognize “Chaplin Keaton Lloyd Alley,” located just off of Hollywood Blvd. This alley served as a film location in numerous silent films, including Harold’s SAFETY LAST!
Re: “History: Harold Lloyd’s Movie Colony estate,” Sept. 13 story by Daniel Simon
In addition to all of his achievements listed is one that ranks close to the top:
While a high school student in the late ’40s, my father served as Illustrious Potentate for the eastern Oklahoma Shrine Temple (chapter). Harold Lloyd was Shrine’s Imperial Potentate (worldwide). That year, my parents attended the Shriners’ Imperial Council Session in Los Angeles led by Harold Lloyd.
A somewhat humorous footnote: In the parade, my dad at one point was mistaken for Lloyd.
He burnished it to the fullest. Yes, he really did look like Lloyd.
Today, there are 400,000 Shrine members in 200 chapters. They support 22 Shrine Hospitals for Children; all services are without costs to the children’s parents or families.
By Tracy Conrad, president of the Palm Springs Historical Society
Harold Lloyd was spectacularly successful by most any measure, but he is not as well-known now as his many accomplishments warrant. Like many important and interesting people of the early 20th century, he came to Palm Springs. Though Lloyd was as famous at the time as his contemporaries Charlie Chaplain and Buster Keaton, the memory of him has faded, undeservedly.
Lloyd came from most humble and tenuous beginnings. His mother cultivated an abiding love of the theater in him. When unable to sustain himself on the stage alone, he broke down and took a job in moving pictures in order to eat. Working regularly, he never looked back. He made some 200 motion pictures between 1914 and 1947, and successfully transitioned from silent to talking pictures. He produced and starred in his own films, exerting unusual control for the time, and in the process made an enormous fortune which he subsequently put to good use.
He unabashedly purchased a series of fine homes in Los Angeles culminating in assembling a gorgeous swath of land in Benedict Canyon on which he constructed, beginning in July 1927 and finishing by year-end in 1928, a grand 44-room mansion called Greenacres. And, as the name suggests, the acreage was even more impressive than the house. Lloyd and landscape engineer A.E. Hanson dreamed up plans for the “largest initial private landscaping project ever attempted” in the Los Angeles area.
There were numerous gardens: tropical, sunken, formal, rose, Italian and terraced. The grounds featured a children’s village with a four-bedroom, thatched-roof house with electricity and running water, a miniature barn described as a “fairyland estate,” a golf course, bridle path, a canoe run, dance pavilion, open-air theater, man-made stream, and the largest swimming pool in California: 50 by 150 feet with the new inventions for filtration and chlorination, and a glass-windowed side for viewing swimmers from the adjacent tunnel.
(The swimming pool was the site of a 1953 film shoot with Marilyn Monroe that was captured behind the scenes in glorious Kodachrome stills by Lloyd himself and was recently the subject of an article by Cari Beauchamp in Atla Journal that’s worth looking up. Marilyn looks picture-perfect in a gorgeous, red bathing suit.)
There were stables for horses, cattle and sheep. A farm and greenhouses for growing vegetables and flowers for the house. Tennis court, handball court and outdoor bowling green. But the waterfall cascade and surrounding gardens, modeled on Villa Gamberaia in Italy, was most impressive of all.
Located in The Movie Colony on North Avenida Palmas, the low-slung, L-shaped house cast a small footprint on its expansive property. “It wasn’t made to be fussy, it was cozy,” recalled Suzanne Lloyd, Harold’s granddaughter, who spent a good deal of her childhood there. She noted for Palm Springs Life Magazine, ‘It was a family house, a place to go and hide out and have fun. He liked having land, he had neighbors he liked. It was a happy place and everyone enjoyed it.'”
Sue Lloyd spent some 20 years coming to the desert with her grandparents and has fond memories of the house and its lush grounds and the many friends in the neighborhood. Across the street was Cary Grant, and kitty-corner was Dinah Shore. Charlie Farrell was across the way. It wasn’t called the Movie Colony for nothing.
The family were close friends with Robert Wagner (who would eventually spend a lot of time in the desert) and Sue tells a story of how they met. Her mother, Gloria, “found RJ at a wedding and brought him home” to Harold, who promptly procured him an agent, and the rest is the stuff of celebrity and movie star magic. They are still close, and Sue still calls him “R baby.”
While Harold Lloyd might not be as recognized as he should be now, the antics he invented and performed for his movies have become iconic, copied innumerable times. He was a highly important star in the nascent movie business and was first among the many notables it produced. After retiring from movies, Lloyd became an expert 3D photographer, traveling the world taking pictures, ultimately amassing a collection of 300,000 stereo slides. He mastered chess, bowling, microscopy and painting. His philanthropy was legendary, and he became a fixture in the business and social communities in the desert.
Greenacres, his magnificent estate, situated on so much extremely valuable land, was subdivided after Lloyd’s death, decimating the gardens and swimming pool. The house was finally saved by Ron Burkle, who also owns Bob Hope’s John Lautner-designed Palm Springs Southridge house. The Lloyd estate in the Movie Colony hasn’t fared as well. It’s been remodeled multiple times, making it almost unrecognizable.
