WAR FILM ACCIDENT

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6766, 21 November 1928, Page 7

WAR FILM ACCIDENT

AUSTRALIAN V.O.’s CLAIM. United Press Association —By Electri# Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, Nov. 19. In the Court of King’s Bench, the Australian Victoria Cross winner, Lieutenant Leonard Koysor, sued the film producer G. B. Samuelson for damages for injuries received in filming a re-enactment of the Gallipoli bombing episode for which the plaintiff was decorated.

The plaintiff’s case was that iu consideration of £75 weekly he went to tho studio at Isleworth. Smoke bonibs and gunpowder were used in the reproduction of the trench scene. He alleges that the bombs were carclesslv thrown and the electrical discharge of the gunpowder faulty, with the result that a bomb and - also gunpowder exploded in his face and fractured his jaw. A hundred incised wounds were loft in his forearm and fifty wounds in his knee. Ho was confined to bed for five and a half weeks, and his jaw despite operations, was permanently disfigured. In cross-examination, Lieutenant Keysor denied that he had not told Mr Samuelson about the sandbag portion of tho episode. “Samuel,” he said, “told me a lot of things I did to get tho Victoria Cross, but I hadn’t done them at all.!” (Laughter.) He said that the doctor ordered him to Monaco, which was very quiet. Mr- Bcyfus (for tho defence): “I suppose yon went across the border to Monte Carlo?”

Lieutenant Keysor: “Oh, yes.” Mr Justice Horridgc: “I don’t think you need pursue that.” Keysor admitted that he did not know that the cardboard jam-tin bombs were empty with a small piece of fuse -attached.

Mr Beyfus: “I suggest that not one of the: bombs exploded.’ ’ Keysor: “There was a certain amount of smoke. Something exploded when I threw them back.' ’ The defendant, in his evidence, said that ho included the sandbag after Keysor told him of it. It was not the case that the signal for firing tho charge was the dropping of a sandbag. The scheme was as safe as it could be in a war film. The case was adjourned.