There’s no awards for best inanimate objects in movies but if there were, the winners would be the Maltese falcon statuette prop, Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away, the cucumber from This is Spinal Tap and the clock tower from Back to the Future.
Built in 1948 for the movie An Act of Murder, a film noir starring Fedric March and Edmond O’Briend, the exterior set has appeared in dozens of films and TV shows, including Gremlins, Sneakers, Norbit, Kill a Mockingbird and Bruce Almighty.
But it would become famous most of all for the 1985 time-traveling blockbuster and its sequels. The tower would be used for the climax of the movie when Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) uses it as a conductor for a lightning strike to give it the kick so Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) can go from Nov. 12, 1995 to Oct. 26, 1985.
The clock tower is part of a backlot, Courthouse Square, at Universal Pictures studios in Los Angeles. Even though it’s featured in the 2015 future from the second movie, it almost didn’t survive the first decade of the 21st Century.
On June 1, 2008, a fire broke out as the result of negligence when a worker was using a blow torch on asphalt shingles applied to a facade. He reportedly left before checking if they all had been cooled.
No deaths happened, thankfully. But 17 injuries were reported, mostly from first responders and firefighters. Three acres were reportedly destroyed including the King Kong Encounter, parts of the Square and a vault of copies of movies and TV shows. The stone pillars and structure of the tower was saved as it’s continues to be used.
