Movieland of the Air Museum
The Movieland of the Air Museum opened at Orange County Airport in Southern California on December 14, 1963. It was the culmination of a dream held by veteran movie pilots Paul Mantz and Frank Tallman, both singularly and collectively, that placed their combined collection of aircraft and movie memorabilia on display to the public for the first time. The first visitors to the museum, on that December day nearly sixty years ago, found over fifty rare airplanes spread across a five-acre complex both inside a large hangar and across a crowded outside display area. Surrounding rare World War I Nieuports and Spads and World War II Corsairs and Mustangs was a large aviation armament collection, uniforms, logbooks, movie posters, medals, trophies, and valuable mementoes gathered by two of the best-known movie pilots ever to bring the airplane onto film.
In May 1951, Paul Mantz leased several acres at the southeastern corner of a sleepy little airport located between Santa Ana and Newport Beach in nearby Orange County. At that time, he announced that he would shift his Paul Mantz Air Services from Burbank to his new facility at Orange County Airport. Mantz lived on nearby Balboa Island in Newport Harbor and had been making commuter flights from Orange County to Burbank for several years, so the shift in operations was inevitable. Significant in the announced move was Mantz’s stated intention to open an air museum to display his collection, agreeing to pay 10 percent of the gross revenues to Orange County as part of the lease agreement. It was also expected that Mantz would bring significant motion picture production work to the airport. In the late 1950s, for a brief time, the Mantz Flightarama museum was open in the limited hangar space Mantz had available, but that museum effort floundered, Mantz remaining busy with film and other industry work.
In November 1961, Tallmantz Aviation was incorporated, bringing together the substantial collections of Paul Mantz and Frank Tallman. Thus, the Movieland of the Air was conceived, a museum that would allow the collection to be properly displayed. It was intended from the start that this was not to be a musty museum of dead airplanes, forever consigned to rubber on concrete. Instead, these were to be active flyers, rolling in and out of the museum as dictated by the whims of Hollywood production, airshow schedules, or the desires of Mantz and Tallman to just fly their airplanes. A large hangar was constructed adjoining the business offices and old Mantz hangar (now used mostly for storage), and a fenced off ramp area was created to house the aircraft for display. Active Tallmantz aircraft were to be parked on the ramp in front of the museum. In December 1963 the museum held its grand opening, and it immediately proved to be a popular attraction in tourist rich Orange County, with nearby Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, the Movieland Wax Museum, and sunny beaches all drawing crowds.
Walking into the museum from its main entrance, resplendent with a missile pointing toward the sky, visitors were immediately struck by a dozen or more aircraft that lined the sides of the display hangar, with thoughtfully created dioramas placed behind the aircraft to represent a period or, more often, a film that a particular aircraft had been use in. Sprinkled throughout the hangar were displays with hundreds of photos, most from Mantz or Tallman movie projects, displayed with press clippings, movie posters, and pertinent information about each of the aircraft. Most of the aircraft displayed indoors were the fabric-covered antiques, ranging from Tallman’s Bleriot to the Mantz-constructed Spirit of St. Louis replica created for the 1957 film, though a place honor was reserved for NX1204, one of the Mantz P-51C Mustang racers.
Stepping out the hangar side door was the outdoor display area dominated by a Continental Airlines DC-7B (N8210H), which was usually open for tours. Sprinkled around the DC-7 were what are now called warbirds, mostly World War II fighters including Corsairs, P-40s, and a P-38. These were by no means the restored, revered, and pampered Warbird queens of today; most were barely past their last military paint scheme, and they were maintained, painted, and flown primarily in support of a movie project or airshow, and only enough to make a good appearance. They were working airplanes.
The museum was a popular attraction for several years. But a setback occurred between 1966 and 1968. After Mantz was killed in July 1965, the process of settling some lawsuits and the Mantz estate forced Tallman to sell 45 aircraft and many displays to a group of Nebraska investors in February 1966. It was expected that the aircraft would shortly be resold and removed from the museum, and some were. But the bulk of the sold aircraft remained on display until May 1968 when the famed Tallmantz Auction occurred. Actually, though, it was not Tallmantz selling the aircraft off…it was the Nebraska investors that were selling the collection. After the 1968 auction, the sold aircraft quickly departed the museum, and Tallmantz closed the museum while new aircraft were prepared for display. In 1969, the museum opened once again, though much of the museum outdoor area and the Tallmantz ramp were occupied by ex-Catch-22 B-25s in storage and awaiting sale. Nonetheless, the museum remained open and available for visitors.
Attendance numbers for the museum began to dwindle in the 1970s, similar to the dwindling of movie flying jobs available to Tallmantz. After Tallman was killed in 1978, the museum remained open for the balance of the company’s operation under the original management. After company president Frank Pine died in 1984, action was taken by the surviving Tallman and Pine families to liquidate the collection and sell the company. Most of the museum collection was sold to Kermit Weeks in Florida, where much of it remains. The museum was officially closed in 1985, and Tallmantz was sold to a new owner that same year. The company’s new owner closed the doors entirely in 1991.
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