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We are compiling a list of when and where museums have been used as backdrops and themes in other cultural forms – low or highbrow, real or imagined, we are not fussy. Please add to the list. do you know of any more?
please let us know & we will add them to the list
[click here] remember to include: medium title date museum referenced any comments your name let us know if you are happy for us to include your name as the source books
Borrower of the Night, by Elizabeth Peters (The first Vicky Bliss Mystery, where the protagonist is ultimately offered a job in the National Museum of West Germany - sorry, spoiler alert)
The Lonely God, by Agatha Christie (a romantic short story set in the British Museum)
The Smithsonian Institution, by Gore Vidal (perhaps the source for some aspects of the film A Night in the Museum 2?)
Craig Ball, Central Highlands Regional Council, Emerald, Queensland
Horror in the Museum, by HP Lovecraft (20 short stories of unspeakable terror, where else but in a museum)
Sarah Edwards, Museum Victoria, Melbourne Axolotl, by Julio Cortazar (short story set in Jardin des Plantes aquarium, Paris)
Erica Sanders, Museums Australia (Victoria), Melbourne The Museum Guard, by Howard Norman (a museum somewhere in Halifax, Nova Scotia, late 1930s)
Erica Sanders, Museums Australia (Victoria), Melbourne The Seven Crystal Balls (The Adventures of Tintin), by Hergé (Darwin Museum, somewhere near Marlinspike) Crocodile on the Sandbank (An Amelia Peabody Mystery), by Elizabeth Peters (Boulaq Museum, Egypt)
Michelle Glynn, Lonely Planet, Melbourne The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone (The Vatican, Rome)
Jesse Marlow, photographer, Melbourne The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown (The Louvre, Paris) The Brush-off, by Shane Maloney (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) films
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the lightning thief (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Terror in the Wax Museum, 1973 (a generic wax museum - note this film does not feature Paris Hilton) Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986 (Art Institute of Chicago - the soundtrack to the visit was a cover version of The Smiths' Please, Please, Please let me get what I want performed by The Dream Academy) Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky V and Rocky Balboa, 1976+ (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania - where the front steps have now become known as The Rocky Steps, spawning many a tragic youtube clip)
The Animal Kingdom, 2010 (National Gallery of Victoria International) (where the criminal family agree to meet their lawyers because it is a location that no-one they know would ever go - the crims that is, not the lawyers)
The International, 2009 (The Guggenheim, New York, in which there is the best shoot-out down, over and through the ramp)
The Relic, 1997 (Museum of Natural History of Chicago, in which the half man half gekko creature Kothoga runs amok)
Elizabeth Triarico, Heritage Victoria, Melbourne
Get Smart, 2007 (The Control History Museum, Washington DC, in which Agent 86 misunderstands the hands-off nature of the display)
Musee haut, musee bas, 2008 (Musee Malraux, Le Havre, France)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney Red Dragon, 2002 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the baddie eats an original William Blake to assume the identity of the depicted Red Dragon)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
Belphegor - The Phantom of the Louvre, 2001 (The Louvre, Paris, a remake of the 1965 TV mini series)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
The Relic, 1997 (Natural History Museum, Chicago)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
La Sindrome di Stendha, 1996 (Uffizi, Florence)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
A Room with a View, 1985 (Uffizi, Florence)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
Manhattan, 1979 (Museum of Modern Art, New York)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
Vertigo, 1958 (The Legion of Honour Museum, San Francisco)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
Woman in Distress, 1937 (a Dutch museum, which includes the theft of a Rembrandt)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney The Last Templar (an anonymous museum, New York)
The International (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)
A Night in the Museum 2 (The Smithsonian et al, Washington D.C.)
Yes Man (Frank H Woods Telephone Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska and Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles)
Agent Coby Banks 2: Destination London (Tate Britain masquerading as the headquarters of the diabolical villain) Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago)
Carla Bruce-Lee, Melbourne The Flight of the Red Balloon (Musee d'Orsay, Paris, which also commissioned the film) The Knowing (filmed April 2008 in Melbourne Museum, which was masquerading as the Boston Museum)
Bernard Caleo and Sarah Edwards, Museum Victoria, Melbourne When Harry Met Sally (the Egyptian Room of the Metropolitan Museum, New York)
Erica Sanders, Museums Australia (Victoria), Melbourne Lust and Revenge, by Paul Cox (Art Gallery of South Australia)
Erica Sanders, Museums Australia (Victoria), Melbourne Looney Tunes: Back in Action (a Paris art museum) Men in Black (Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum) Bande à part (Band of Outsiders) (The Louvre)
Merryn Gates, Services for Art, Canberra Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (a Los Angeles art museum)
Merryn Gates, Services for Art, Canberra How to Steal a Million (a Paris museum)
Merryn Gates, Services for Art, Canberra National Treasure (US National Archives, Washington DC; Franklin Institute, Philadelphia; Liberty Bell Center, Philadelphia)
Rodney Leeson, ITG Partners, Chartered Accountants, Melbourne The World is Not Enough - James Bond 007 (Guggenheim Bilbao)
Robert Heather, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne On the Beach (State Library of Victoria, Melbourne)
Robert Heather, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne Russian Ark (The State Hermitage Museum, St.Petersburg)
Robert Heather, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne Topkapi (Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul)
Kevin Patrick, Buzz Productions, Camberwell Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum A Night at the Museum (American Museum of Natural History)
Grant Gee, ITG Partners, Chartered Accountants, Melbourne The Thomas Crown Affair (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) The Da Vinci Code (The Louvre, Paris) The Mummy (The British Museum, London) television
Hustlers (Eltham Palace, London) (where the gorgeous round art deco foyer served as the corporate headquarters of the company about to be hustled, Kayne Holdings)
Inspector Morse (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford)
Framed, BBC telemovie (National Gallery, London) (anyone who cares about the safe care of objects should not watch this. eg. Holbein's Ambassadors is displayed in a seriously cold Welsh cave as a moodsetter for a dinner party - excruciating, but all good fun) Dr. Who, Vincent and The Doctor, Series 5, Episode 10 (Musee d'Orsay, Paris) (with Bill Nighy doing a marvelous impression of a curator, bow tie and all)
Spooks, Series 7, Episode 4 (V&A, London) (museums are obviously a great place for clandestine relations)
Spooks, Series 5, Episode 8 (Natural History Museum, London)
Don't Eat the Pictures, 1983 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a Sesame Street TV movie)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
G.E.True, Episode 10: The Mona Lisa, 1963 (The Louvre, Paris)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
You Are There, Episode 24: The Recovery of the Mona Lisa, 1956 (The Louvre, Paris )
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
From the mixed up files of Mrs Basil E.Frankweiler, 1995 (LA County Museum of Art, California)
Jane Raffan, ARTiFACTS, Aboriginal Art Consultancy, Sydney
Lewis, ABC1 2008 (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford) Family Guy, Channel 7 2007 (Chicago Museum of Art) Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Death on the Nile, ABC1 2007 (Eltham Palace, London) The Brush-off, ABC1 2004 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne)
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