This time we went to the London Film Museum. I had been wanting to visit this place for years and finally my dream came true.
After rather hilariously trying to find our way through all the passages and corridors we made it to the start the museum with an exhibition of the costumes from The Iron Lady. That was rather odd as most of the costumes were similar but different colours. More excitingly, round the corner was the original gong used in the Rank Films studio icon. You know the one where the man, half naked (later found out more than half) hits a gigantic gong. If not, here it is below along with a very bad photo I took with my phone.
After the gong excitement, there was plenty of information about all the studios in England and about their history. There were also various film themed rooms, including a DC Comics, Animation and Harry Potter one. There was a horror room which I couldn't even enter. I caught a glimpse of several severed heads and freaked out. I waited on a giant bench opposite a yeti.
Then we wondered around some giant objects for a while until we realised they were props the film The Borrowers. Not a great film but hey we got to see the props. We also had a look in the Sci Fi room where a giant Queen Alien was guarding her eggs, really freaked me out. Next door was the Sherlock Holmes room, with a complete set up the detective's room. Along that corridor was various bits and pieces of film memorabilia including photographs and stills. There was a Ray Harryhausen
exhibition showing all his work in animation, including a giant statue of Medusa from the original Clash of the Titans. This led on to the Star Wars room which had all the characters behind bars and then half a tube train carriage.
But all this was mere exhibits compared to the best part of the museum, the Charlie Chaplin exhibition!!!!!!
I had a whale of a time. Apart there being a massive timeline with photographs, posters and such, there were gigantic portraits on the wall and a mini Chinese Theatre, modeled after the one in LA where the Oscars are held. There were some old fashioned theatre seats and various clips from his films. It was amazing. We stayed in there for quite some time until we started to get hungry and I almost tripped and had an accident.
After that shock we treated ourselves with some delicious cake and coffee and a well deserved rest. Yes I think we did deserve it. We then searched for a cinema in London that was showing the newly released Dark Shadows. This film had come out that day but we still couldn't find a cinema that was showing it and at a decent time. We had a quick coffee/hot chocolate in really nice restaurant type place in Covent Garden, I forget the name, before dashed back to catch the film. We settled on Empire in Leicester Square and oh my was that a wonderous theatre. If you've never been do try as it is MASSIVE! No quite as big as the IMAX but damn close. Such a beautiful screen, but as for the film, more on that in another post.
All in all it was a grand day out and the next plan is already in motion.