How a Trip To The Drugstore Inspired Jurassic Park's Most Iconic Prop
Jurassic Park's iconic Barbasol shaving cream can came at the suggestion of art director John Bell, who was inspired to use the brand after visiting his local Walgreen's.
Without exception, every Steven Spielberg film has at least one prop that sticks with the audience long after the credits roll.
As time goes on, that cinematic iconography becomes a kind of shorthand for each movie. Jaws: yellow barrels. Close Encounters of the Third Kind: mashed potato Devils Tower. Raiders of the Lost Ark: golden fertility idol. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: Reese's Pieces.
When you think of Jurassic Park, what's one of the first images that comes to mind? It's probably Dennis Nedry's (Wayne Knight) can of Barbasol shaving cream, right? The item cleverly designed to smuggle frozen dinosaur embryos off Isla Nublar was in the novel by Michael Crichton where it's described as "a large can of Gillette Foamy shaving cream."
Why a brand change on the big screen?
How a trip to the drugstore inspired Jurassic Park's iconic Barbasol can
Well, for one thing, David Koepp's shooting script did not mention a specific company, only stating that shady Biosyn rep Lewis Dogdson (played in the original movie by Cameron Thor) "pulls out an ordinary can of shaving cream."
The idea of going with a different label came at the suggestion of art director John Bell, who was inspired to go with Barbasol after visiting his local Walgreen's.
He described the company as "a classic American brand" while speaking to author James Mottram for Jurassic Park: The Ultimate Visual History. "I remember seeing TV commercials of that all the time growing up. I brought it back to the studio. And I said, 'I think we should be using this, Rick [Carter, production designer],' and he was on board with it."
The ironic part is that Gilette also began in the United States and precedes Barbasol by almost 20 years.
"The first day I came in, [Rick] goes, 'We've already done a lot of work on the film, but I want you to look through what we've done, read the script and then give me whatever take you have on this,'" Bell recalled during a 2024 appearance on the Kingdom of Dreams podcast. "'I don't care what it is—vehicles, props, storyboard sequence. Whatever you want to do, come up with stuff and we'll see where it goes.'"
"He gave me that broad lane to drive in and I just started taking stabs at all different areas," Bell concluded. "There's so much to be inspired by ... that I was just doing whatever came to mind. He liked what I was doing and then I got introduced to Spielberg. It was one of the greatest experiences of my career for sure."
