Number 5, the heroic robot from the 1986 Steve Guttenburg comedy Short Circuit and its 1988 sequel Short Circuit 2, is one of the keynote items up for an online auction tomorrow and Friday from the film and television collectable house Profiles in History.
A total of 15 various prop Johnny Fives were built, though most were not fully functioning models. The one up for auction is believed to be the only complete prop known to have survived from the films’ productions. Though originally built for the first film at a cost of $175,000.00, the opening bid for the radio controlled prop is a bargain basement $100,000.00. Also included in the auction is the robot’s complex remote control system.
Other interesting items on the block include-
- 56 lots of photos from the collection of long time photographer/collector Nick Polydoros including shots from the lost Clara Bow film Rough House Rosie (1927)
- Dashiell Hammett’s contract to write After The Thin Man for MGM signed October 23, 1934
- An archive of pre-production material from the unproduced film War Eagles being developed by King Kong masterminds Merian C. Cooper and Willis O’Brien. The lot includes an original story outline, three different script drafts and photographs of original production art and photocopies of over 100 pages of research notes
- Dozens of lobby cards from such films as the Clara Bow comedy True To The Navy (1930), Blondie On A Budget (1940, which features an early Rita Hayworth appearance), Cabin In The Sky (1943), Orson Welles’ The Third Man (1949) and Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958)
- Scripts, production art and an original facehugger from Alien and Aliens
- A passport application filled out by Great Garbo in 1928
- Numerous costumes, props and scripts from the various Star Trek television series and movies
- Costume design sketches by such noted Hollywood designers as Edith Head, Donfeld, Helen Rose, Charles Le Marie and Morton Haack
- The orange 1975 Dodge van with Santana camper package seen in the indie comedy Napoleon Dynamite
You can download the complete auction catalog at Profiles in History’s website.
