Safes & Vaults versus Hollywood

wylk · 2009-12-22T18:17:07+00:00

Purely for fun I though I’d start a discussion of how Hollywood treats safes & vaults. Sometimes it’s quite ridiculous, sometimes it’s interesting. What are your favorites? James Bond, I forget which movie, used a credit-card-sized X-ray viewer to open a wall safe by viewing the wheels. Very difficult to do unless the X-ray source is on the other side, and even then quite unlikely. Nevertheless the lock industry has long offered “radiation resistant” wheel packs and other countermeasures. What impressed me was the image looked like a real X-ray view of a real safe lock. And the wonderful product-placement choice of “Sharper Image” on the imaging card. Ocean’s 13 used a similar idea in the opening, this time to view the locks and boltwork of a massive vault door. The image looked plausible though the device was pure baloney. Goldfinger. Quite silly representation of a vault, and it seemed that everybody knew the combination. But it sure was impressive-looking, and the door was moderately realistic. Bond, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (I think). Over a lunch hour, he uses a suitcase-sized auto-dialer to open a safe. A clever idea, and portrayed more realistically than most gadgets and techniques. Today they are somewhat common; did they exist in 1969? Ocean’s 11, my favorite scene is near the beginning when the vault/explosives expert “blows” what looks like a real York door (US patent 929,907, dated 1909). It looks to me like they even got the boltwork right (easy if it’s a real door) and the mechanism is even shown in the “locked” position as the door is opening. Just ignore the utter silliness of shaped charges cutting through the door and slicing through the bolts :-) Any thoughts on the above, or addition? Jim

wylk

In the upcoming movie Ocean’s 8 (out June 8 2018) one scene looks like it’s shot with a real (former) bank vault. These are frame grabs from the first trailer, run through Photoshop Essentials to brighten them up. I’m sure there will be more in the movie itself but this is about it for the trailer.

The movie was mostly shot in New York City and Los Angeles. It looks like a Strauss-design door but I don’t recognize the location. Can anybody help out?

wylk

I’ve convinced myself that the Ocean’s 8 door is the one Doug MacQueen wrote about in 2011 -
https://www.antique-locks.com/showthread.php/1547-Strauss-Vault-Door-made-by-York/page2

On the left of the door the glass is reflecting the outer gate work which seems to match the movie still. A few more pictures were posted to Reddit by “reasonman” -
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/18ny2g/old_vault_doors_are_awesome

Details seem to match the movie, such as the layout of the day gate.

But Doug, you didn’t divulge the location other than “lower Manhattan.” Could you be more specific?

Chubby

Another good one about 4 minutes in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJIxd12Ovyg

wylk

There is a 2007 movie “Flawless” with Michael Caine and Demi Moore about a fictional diamond heist. So of course there is a vault door which looks fairly good at first:

Aside from not looking quite like any door I’ve seen, things start to fall apart with the details beginning with the single hand wheel; normally there is one for the pressure system and one for the locking bolts. After the door opens, things get worse.

There are no locking bolts and the prop builders seem to think the pressure bars do the locking, on the outside. The inside face shows there is no time lock which seems odd. But the actors do make it look like it’s very heavy.

Images are from two trailers, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng2_QeGQBn0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_3Oo4P7S-8

Cepasaccus

In “Agatha Christie’s Poroit”, S10E1, “The Mystery of the Blue Train” is a portable strong box with combination lock. It is used as a storage for an expensive diamond on a railway trip. As expected that diamond is stolen nonetheless. Sorry, don’t have a good photo and the illegal copies on youtube are really bad.

wylk

Cepasaccus wrote
In “Agatha Christie’s Poroit”, S10E1, “The Mystery of the Blue Train” is a portable strong box with combination lock. It is used as a storage for an expensive diamond on a railway trip. As expected that diamond is stolen nonetheless. Sorry, don’t have a good photo and the illegal copies on youtube are really bad.

I could not resist checking our Poirot collection. Not great images, but here they are. First on the rail platform, second being dragged down the corridor:

Later, two images of the box being opened:

The dial looks Sargent & Greenleaf-ish. This would be in character, the owner is American. I can’t say whether that particular dial and ring are proper for the time but the index mark seems poorly aligned with the box. The story’s basic plot was in a 1923 short story which was later expanded as a full-length novel in 1928. But the TV series consistently was set in 1936 so that’s the year that counts.

[unknown]

Cepasaccus

Great, thanks! I wonder if the single mark is the opening index.

wylk

I forgot to mention that this lock clicks loudly as the dial is turned, like many Hollywood locks, which seems to have aided an outsider in determining the combination. I assume this sound effect was added in post-production. Of course real locks don’t click.

Chubby

No change index.

wylk

“How to Rob a Bank” - yet another heist movie, this time from 2007. You may not have seen this one, it made $1,006 at the box office. But it does have a vault, and it’s an old friend –

This is the same prop door that was used in a recent IBM ad as well as early in the 2001 movie Ocean’s 11, both discussed earlier in this thread (June 17 2016, and February 12 2013). A trailer is on Youtube as well as pieces of the movie itself.

wylk

Here’s a wildly imaginative magazine cover. I can’t blame the artist, it’s so obviously not an attempt to be realistic. But it’s kind of humorous.

Cepasaccus

The second vertical line is missing. Not realistic indeed.

Cepasaccus

A few Dollars for Django. Spaghetti western from 1966. About 4 minutes into the movie.

Bramah lock and a four dial combination lock?

Huw Eastwood

Looks classic French, a lot of makers made that style, if you do an Internet search for ‘coffre fort ancien’ you’ll see loads of them.
It’s unlikely a Bramah lock, more likely one of the typical French star profiled keys like Fichet’s or Bauche’s which operate a similar type of lock cylinder but have radial ‘levers’ instead of slides.

Cepasaccus

https://youtu.be/tK6Ty-uLIwM?t=157

Betty Boop - The Old Man Of The Mountain
A squirrel has stored a nut in a tree safe having four doors with combination locks to secure its content.
Music by Cab Calloway

Chubby

This is fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yxwQ-dwfD4

wylk

11 Harrowhouse is a 1974 diamond-heist movie in which a large quantity of diamonds is stolen from an impressive-looking vault. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_Harrowhouse and the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL5BtxwdTnU

The vault is very elaborate and very Hollywood, and unlike any real world vault (as far as we know, of course).

wylk

I don’t believe this image was in any of the Despicable Me movies. It is probably just more marketing for them, and clearly a Hollywood door.

Cepasaccus

Music video with el cheapo safe.
https://youtu.be/x5elsQTAMJw?t=252

Huw Eastwood

Cepasaccus wrote
Music video with el cheapo safe.

Neither of those tragedies strike me as ‘music’, or a ‘safe’ 😛:

[unknown]

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