I Own Jeffrey Tambor’s Pants : Redux - Part Two
06.07.06 By Collin DavidSo, if you’re anything like me, you’re sitting in your room and thinking “I own Jeffrey Tambor’s screen-worn Hellboy pants…. now what?”
Ideally, movie props like this are something that one would put on a mannequin, in a glass display case, with a tiny label proclaiming them to be the glorious thing that they are. Unfortunately, given my living conditions, Mr. Tambor’s pants remain in a box at the end of my bed, safe from the elements but also not receiving the attention that they deserve. This is the kind of ‘rainy day’ collecting that I tend to do - leaning towards the bizarre or artistic, and intended to be displayed properly some day when time and space collaborate in my favor. I’ve always found a way to turn the things that I love into lifestyle and profit, so I hope that these too will go the way of the well-constructed life. I’ve yet to determine if that life necessarily includes Jeffrey Tambor’s pants, or if said pants are quietly a hindrance to whatever sense of responsibility I hope to develop.
Jeffrey Tambor’s pants weren’t the only things being sold by Revolution Studios though, and I fell in love with the choker that Selma Blair wore on-screen as Liz Sherman. In the Hellboy comic books, this choker is a signature, iconic costume piece for her, even if it’s not especially prominent in the movie itself. Her action figure was wearing it, so that gave it a real sense of importance to me. Plus, I still had an affection for her from when she guest starred on Pete and Pete.
Of course, Selma Blair is a much more recognizable name than Tambor’s, and the value of movie props usually inflates exponentially with the fame of the character who has used the prop, the prominence of the character in the movie, or even who the stunt double using the prop was portraying. So, I set out on a mission to own the very goth, very attractive choker, which was handmade especially for the movie and had once graced the neck of a beautiful woman. For me, this balanced out my increasingly questionable excitement from owning the pants of a large man. I could re-ascertain myself as a ‘Hellboy Aficionado’ instead of an ‘unkempt freak’, though the line was thin.
This raised an important question about collecting - how often do we determine our collecting habits based on what other people might think? Could I have possibly bought these pants because I was already un-rescuably weird?
I know that most collectors collect themselves into their own universes and remain relatively unconcerned with outside opinion during the process of collecting. It’s a euphoric high. If I needed some kind of amputation, I wouldn’t need morphine or a sedative. Just let me recklessly surf eBay for whatever Batman things I don’t yet own and I’ll be set. It’s only afterwards that I consider the social ramifications of having a room full of pointy-eared agents of cosmic justice. Of course, these are also tell-tale signs of addiction. Anyhow, the Liz Sherman choker would look great with the Agent Manning pants, in the imaginary display that I might eventually put them in someday.
I ended up paying well over a hundred dollars for the choker, and I don’t think I regret it, though it plunged me into a short fascination with other movie props which I wisely abstained from. There’s nothing more tempting than a Ripper mask from Tank Girl, another comic-based movie, but I decided that I probably needed to chill out for a while.
With Hellboy 2 in and out of production, there’s no telling if various disputes will become resolved enough to create a sequel anytime soon, so I’m glad that I got while the getting was good. Even if my definition of ‘good’ happens to be unwashed, mud-encrusted pants and sweaty chokers. At least it’s FAMOUS sweat and mud.
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Article Tags: Hellboy, Jeffrey Tambor, Selma Blair================
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