Pieces from Rose Tools collection head to Hollywood
Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bvwv/News/1120/
Rose Tools in Hiwasse is providing the hand tools for a new movie called "Evan Almighty," the sequel to "Bruce Almighty."
Owner Donna Allen, who lives in Bella Vista, said she sells a lot of her hand tools over the Internet. That’s how Brad Einhorn, the props properties master for the movie, found out about all her tools. "He was surfing in the Internet and found us," she added.
At first they e-mailed back and forth, and then she mailed him three draw knives, a hand tool used to shape wood. When Einhorn got them, he sent her his telephone number and asked her to call him. The first question he asked Donna was whether she had a lot of hand tools. When she tells this story, she just laughs and looks around her shop at the rows and rows of shelves filled with all kinds of hand tools.
After he heard about her tools, he wanted her to send him pictures right away, within an hour. Then, he wanted that second package of tools sent overnight by Parcel Post Express by the U.S. Post Office. He wanted everything shipped overnight. Geneva Hamilton, the postmistress, was wonderful, according to Allen. She made sure everything got there. Einhorn spent a fortune on postage, according to Allen.
Allen called her husband Joe to tell him about getting orders for tools for a movie and that she had to get the stuff out that day. He asked her if she could do it. "I just threw stuff all over the floor," she said. "Customers were coming in and having to step over stuff." When she told them why she was in such a mess, they just loved it.
Supplying the tools took about three weeks. The reason Einhorn contacted Rose Tools was that he was looking for primitive tools. In the new movie, Morgan Freeman, who plays God, contacts Evan Baxter, played by Steve Carell, and asks him to build an ark. For the movie, they are actually building a 400-foot ark.
A lot of the tools were made in the 1800s and earlier, still not nearly the age of the tools he wanted. Since finding tools that old was impossible, he told Donna that he was going to take the tools she sent him and "doctor them to look older."
Over the three-week period, Allen mailed a dozen packages of tools to Universal Studios in California, netting more than $2,500.
When the movie comes out, Allen wants to get a movie poster, and she definitely wants to see the movie and shout, "Those are my tools." She also hopes that she’s going to get more business from this movie. "When you have a business on the Internet, you never know who’s going to call," she added.
While $2,500 worth of hand tools may sound like a lot, Allen didn’t think it was much when she heard that Morgan Freeman was getting $50 million for his part.