‘The Lovely Bones’ dollhouse is a pricey prop

Prop master Martin Lasowitz had to delve into many different detail-obsessed subcultures to re-create the early 1970s for director Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones” -- the world of ship-in-a-bottle hobbyists, for instance, and snow-globe makers -- but perhaps the most impressive was the intricate dollhouse he found for Stanley Tucci’s sinister Mr. Harvey. “We thought about building it from scratch but that was cost prohibitive,” Lasowitz said. He finally tracked down a dollhouse builder close to the film’s Philadelphia shooting location, but to make the house look appropriately obsessive for the Harvey character’s taste, Lasowitz had to make multiple trips to the store to decorate and furnish the house. “I went to a place, it was like a cross between an antique mall and Home Depot,” Lasowitz said. “You could pick out flooring, wallpaper, chandeliers, even handmade jewelry to go on the dolls in the house. It gets a little bit bizarre.” In the end, Harvey’s dollhouse ended up being the most expensive single prop in the film with a price tag of $5,000.

-- Patrick Kevin Day