Big In Hollywood
Fife-based vintage specialist shop Scaramanga has become an essential resource for Hollywood prop departments
Fife-based vintage specialist Scaramanga has become an essential resource for props on blockbuster film sets
HAVE you ever wondered where period dramas and films get their authentic-looking props? Well, if they’re taking it seriously then there’s one name on the list – Scaramanga.
Carl Morenikeji is the founder and director of the Fife-based vintage specialist company Scaramanga, and he’s had a few unusual requests for film and TV props over the years.
“They don’t want to give too much away, of course,” Carl says, “as they don’t want to reveal where they’re filming and who might be there, what the scenes are, what the story might be.
“Generally we’ll get an enquiry, and they’ll say, for example, ‘I’m working on… a medieval-style film and am looking for three trunks or chests which need to be this size, in the medieval style – what have you got?’”
In the last few years Scaramanga, from its premises in Cupar, has supplied items – ranging from padlocks to suitcases – to major films including Mama Mia! Here We Go Again, Paddington 2, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Victoria & Abdul, Pan, The Legend of Tarzan and Stan and Ollie.
The company, which sells a distinctive range of bags, furniture and homewares, has also supplied props to TV shows including Celebrity Big Brother, Strictly Come Dancing, and Peaky Blinders.
“Generally it tends to be period dramas,” Carl says. “The detail really has to be spot-on because it’s not as if things are all blurred in the background. When someone says they want something from the 1920s, there’s no point in us trying to give them something
“Film makers don’t want to give too enquiries” much away when they make
from 1930 or the turn of the century, so it’s a case of us knowing our stuff, and giving as good a description as possible to the prop buyer.”
Carl’s business happened almost by chance, and goes back to a trip he made to India in 1998.
“I was working for BT at the time, in their internet division – a fantastically exciting division – but I just wanted a bit of a break, so I took a sabbatical and went travelling around the world for a year,” he says.
“The first place I went to was India and just absolutely loved it.
“About half-way through my four-month stay in India, I went to Rajasthan; it’s a desert state – dark and dusty and dry outside, but the villages, the towns and the cities are really colourful. The buildings, the furniture – everything’s painted different colours!
“I just fell in love with how everything was handmade and how, after a period of time, because of the extreme weather, everything’s worn and faded. It’s really kind of natural.”
Carl bought an old-style leather satchel in a bazaar, and brought it back with some other items including leather-bound journals and hand-made small boxes. “People just loved what I’d brought, and I thought there was an opportunity here to start a business.”
Nevertheless, it took him another seven years to launch one. “Not that I was dragging my feet!” Carl says. He went back to work for BT, and then he and his wife moved up to Edinburgh for a few years, before relocating to Fife.
“I thought – I just don’t want to be commuting into Edinburgh every day. We’ve made the decision to live in the countryside, so there was no point in me living half my life in the city.”
Having already written a business plan a few years earlier, he was pleasantly surprised when his bank approved it. So he left his job at BT, and travelled back to the places he’d previously visited in India.
“He brought back three suitcases full of items including a dozen hand-made leather satchels, and built a small website to sell them online.
“It took about two months to sell the first bag, and then a fortnight to sell another. Within about three months, all 12 bags had sold,” he says, so he ordered some more and they were couriered across to the UK.
More than a decade later, Carl’s still using some of the same suppliers, although not for everything.
“I bought my bag from a little desert town called Jaisalmer, very close to the border with Pakistan, but they weren’t able to make enough for us – so we moved our production, after about four years, to Kolkata on the east side of India. But the same person still binds our journals and we still buy furniture from the same people we used 12 years ago.”
Not all the company’s stock comes from overseas, though. “Much of what we’ll buy we’ll source locally from dealers,” he says, pointing to a large map of South America on the wall of his cubby-hole office, which came from an old school in Edinburgh.
The company’s reputation among film prop buyers and
production managers is apt, given its name. Scaramanga is the villain in 1974 James Bond film The Man With The Golden Gun, memorably played by Christopher Lee.
“I can’t now remember the process of the name… I’m not a Bond fan! I don’t know all the names of the James Bond films, or all the actors. It’s just a name that really jumped out, and lots of people, particularly people around my age, remember the film.
“Chiefly, I wanted a name that was easy to spell, easy
Carl has to sign non-disclosure agreements for the films he provides props for
to remember, and that kind of lent itself to the fact that we are selling either vintage-style bags or old, antique furniture and homewares.”
Having signed several non-disclosure agreements, Carl is unable to talk about the most recent films Scaramanga has contributed to, but it’s fair to say that the company’s reputation is such that in period films now – no matter the location – a little bit of Hollywood magic will likely have been sourced in Scotland.