Michael J. Fox's performance at The Enchantment Under the Sea is one of my all time favorite scenes in a movie. A while back I decided to research what model Gibson he played in the film. As it turns out the Gibson ES-345 that he played was also a time traveler. That scene took place in 1955 but that model guitar didn't exist until 1959.

Here is the background for how that guitar was chosen for the film. I found it to be pretty cool.




Link to original video: https://youtu.be/S1i5coU-0_Q


Source: Reverb, Published Oct 21, 2015 by Matt Biancardi

It took us a bit longer than them, but we’re finally at October 21st, 2015, the day Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown arrived to save Marty’s kid from prison in “Back to the Future II.”

While everyone at Reverb has their fingers crossed for the Cubs’ World Series victory prophesied by the film, we’re more than stymied by the guitar Marty used for his madcap rendition of “Johnny B. Goode” at the high school dance in the original film.

In that famous scene, Michael J. Fox plays a guitar that didn’t exist in 1955: a cherry red Gibson ES-345 TDC with Bigsby, a model only made available in 1959, according to the “Vintage Guitar Price Guide.” So how did the movie seemingly blunder such an important detail in such a pivotal scene?

Norman Harris, owner of the iconic shop Norm’s Rare Guitars and the man who rented the guitar to the production, gave us the lowdown on how the axe made its way back to the mid ‘50s.


In ‘84, Harris received a call from the Warner Bros.’ prop department about a film that would take place in 1955. “They wanted a guitar that looked slightly futuristic,” Harris says. “I suggested a Gibson ES-5 Switchmaster with P-90s, which would have been era-correct and all that. That’s originally what they rented.”

The guitar, which had a price tag of $2,100 at the time, was in excellent condition and the propmaster was happy to rent it for $300 a week, he recalls. The plan was for a one or two week rental, but that stretched to nine weeks, and the studio had yet to open the case. Harris suggested they would be better off buying the guitar at that point, but the propmaster assured him that wouldn’t matter, and that the film had a large budget.

And then they changed their minds.

The art director [Todd Hallowell], wanted something different, something red with a whammy. “I told them nothing along those lines would be time correct for 1955. The art director didn’t mind taking artistic license and wanted to know what I had in stock.”


Harris presented a number of options, including a Gretsch 6120; a Gretsch Red Jet series and an early ‘60s Gibson ES-345 TDC with Bigsby, which didn’t exist in 1955, and wouldn’t for another three years. “Maybe because it was a time-travel sci-fi flick, they could get away with that kind of stuff,” Harris says. “In a movie like ‘Bound for Glory’ it would be more noticeable. As they say in Hollywood: the truth is no excuse for a bad story.”

Having made the decision, the 345 then sat unused for weeks, racking up more rental fees for Norm’s, which left the studio team completely unfazed. “They could have bought it several times over, but it never bothered them. One of the many positives renting to Hollywood? Money’s no object.” Weeks after they returned the guitar, Harris received another call from the studio requesting the 345, which they needed again for inserts and close-ups. They kept for another three weeks.

Years later, the studio called to request the guitar for the sequel. “By now they were married to the guitar,” Harris says, and even less so than previously, money didn’t matter. “I realized then how lucrative renting to the movies could be. That guitar’s an important piece of movie history because the film was a blockbuster and rightly viewed as a modern classic, even with the incorrect guitar.”

I knew about the trivia regarding the guitar. Thanks for posting that clip of Michael J. Fox prior to his illness becoming evident.

Pretty darn nifty bit of trivia, hadn't heard about it before. At least renting that one had a better ending than Tarantino renting the Martin guitar for Hateful Eight.

I never saw hateful eight. After Inglorious Basterds and his political garbage I just gave up on Tarantino and quit watching his films.

For the heck of it I went on Reverb to see how much vintage Gibson guitars similar to the one used in Back to the Furure are going for.....HOLY SMOKES! They are wildly expensive.

Another piece of trivia for that movie is that when filming started Michael J. Fox wasn't a member of the cast.

Eric Stoltz got the part as Marty McFly and just didn't work out. By most accounts he just wasn't funny. So they recast the part and the rest, as they say, is history.

The way I heard it was that stoltz's artistry was turning the movie darker and more serious than they wanted. The same as not funny enough by from the other side of it. That's when they started looking for someone who would make the movie lighter and funnier and MJF became available.