Props to Chicago: The weird shops behind Hollywood’s movie magic

Walking into Lost Eras in Rogers Park might feel like stepping onto a film set, and in many ways, it is. The overflowing antique shop, crammed with old telephones, fedoras, uranium glassware, and taxidermy, has quietly become a go-to destination for Hollywood movie and television productions shooting in Illinois.

Owner Charlotte Walters can rattle off treasures with cinematic past lives: a rug once soaked in fake blood for Sean Connery’s death scene in “The Untouchables”; studio lights salvaged from Oprah’s Harpo Studios; and even a pair of shoes worn by a background actor in “True Lies.” Hanging in plain sight, near a taxidermic shark, is a “Public Enemies” poster featuring Johnny Depp in an outfit sourced straight from her shop. “I was honored,” Walters said in an interview with WBEZ Chicago. “We didn’t get those clothes back, though.”

Illinois’ film industry has rebounded strongly from pandemic slowdowns and the 2023 strikes, thanks in large part to the state’s lucrative tax credit program. Productions for Apple TV+ (“Dark Matter”) and Netflix (“Monster: The Original Monster”) have recently kept local prop houses and antique stores busy.

They’re so busy, in fact, that California-based ISS Props, one of the largest prop rental companies in the world, opened a Chicago branch in 2023.“One of the benefits of the incentive programs is that it does spread money all over the state,” said Hayden Bilson, vice president of business development at ISS. “Antique shops and retail environments noticed this is a huge draw of business, so they adopt a rental model. There’s a lot of money to be spent.”

Some Chicago shops have been in the game for decades.

Zap Props in McKinley Park, opened in 1989, has grown into a 36,000-square-foot warehouse of curiosities. Over the years, they’ve loaned items to classics like “A League of Their Own” and “Home Alone 2.” Today, their most-rented pieces are timeless essentials, street lamps, desks, and jukeboxes that can blend seamlessly into almost any set.

Read more at Chicago Star

• Commuter happy hour? Metra teases return of bar cars
• O'Hare airport apiaries
• Chicago’s offbeat museums
• Shipwrecks beneath Lake Michigan

“Every time the phone rings, you don’t know what someone’s going to be asking for,” said Madeline Rawski, Zap’s director of operations. “People walk in and it can be overwhelming, so I like helping them hone in on what their vision is.”

In West Town, Salvage One specializes in preserving mantels, stained glass, and architectural elements from Chicago buildings, but the store has become a popular backdrop for productions. Recently, the shop’s carpenter’s bench and watchmaker’s desk were rented for Netflix’s upcoming season of “Monster.”

“I think it’s wonderful that there’s so much going on in the city,” said owner Jane Rodak. “It’s fun to be part of someone’s creative process.”

 Then there’s Woolly Mammoth Chicago, which embraces the eccentric. Often called a “curiosity cabinet of odd, amusing, and eclectic items,” the shop stocks vintage taxidermy, anatomy specimens, military relics, bones, books, and oddities fit for a Tim Burton set.

Woolly Mammoth draws in both filmmakers and curious collectors, offering pieces that go far beyond the ordinary. Skulls, skeletons, medical charts, and industrial relics sit alongside toys, funerary art, and natural history specimens, an odd mix that somehow works. For movie crews, it’s the perfect stop when they need something a little unusual.

For Chicago’s antique shop owners, though, this film boom is about more than seeing their pieces on screen. It’s about keeping their businesses alive. Big productions and small shoots alike now look to local shops for props, sending money not just to warehouses but to neighborhood stores and family-run businesses, too.

As Walters of Lost Eras put it: “It’s not just about selling antiques anymore. It’s about being part of the movies people love.”