MAKING ACCIDENTS FOR FILM SHOCKERS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6805, 8 January 1929, Page 9

MAKING ACCIDENTS FOR FILM SHOCKERS

SPECTACULAR SCENES EXLOSIONS AND WRECKS STAGED AT GREAT COST. If any stranger bad happened to be strolling over the beautiful downs between Alton and Andover one Sunday morning recently he would have had the shock of his life. He would have seen a train running at fifty miles an hour down a long incline straight towards a huge lorry which had boon driven right across the line. The driver of tho lorry had left it on the level-crossing, leapt out, and run for his life. Next moment the train crashed into the lorry, and a fearful explosion occurred. Huge clouds of smoke rose high in the air. As they cleared, there was the engine on its "side, with the train a complete wreck. This was a prearranged accident, the pictures of which will be seen in a new English film. The cost of this one scene was £7060. Accidents of this kind on a big scale are comparatively new on the old world side of the Atlantic, but not so unusual in America. A most amazing film smash was that organised some years ago at South River, New Jersey, when a whole train loaded with dummies was run off a trestle bridge at full speed into a lake. Ihe engine exploded with a fearful roar. When the fcrain fell into the’ water, forty moving-picture actors jumped in, fully dressed. Several of them went down and were in the last throes of real drowning when dragged out of the water unconscious, while the cam-era-men clicked their thrilling records. Nearly a Real Accident. A precipice act is always popular with film-goers. One of the best ever staged was when a huge motor-car was sent over the great cliffs above the Hudson River, called the Palisades. There were five operators ready with their cameras, one on top of the cliffs and four down below. It was a wonderful sigbt, for tho groat lim'ousino exploded in mid-air; then, turning a complete somersault, was blown into a thousand pieces. One of these, a chunk of metal weighing at least a pound, actually grazed the head of one of tho camera-men. Another arranged accident which came near to being a real one was when an expert motor-cyclist was engaged to ride full-tilt into the London Docks. Tho idea was that he should jump clear of the cycle as it fell, just, as Eddie Gifford used to do in his famous diving act at the Hippodrome. But the exhaust valve-stem of tho machine got caught in the lining of the cyclist’s coat and dragged him down into the deep, dark water. Luckily the pace and weight of tho machine caused the cloth to rip and set the man free. Otherwise ho would most certainly have been drowned. A Prematura Explosion.

Another case in which realism nearly brought about disaster occurred near Brighton. The drama was played on top of an eighty-foot cliff, and a man was supposed to fall over tho edge of the cliff. It was arranged that ho should drop on a plank fixed- just below tho edge, but he went clear over tho plank and into the sea. If he had not been a first-class swimmer nothing could have saved him, for ho was more than half stunned by the fall. One of the biggest and most costly “accidents” ever staged in England, was in the making of “The Tattooed Will,” where a liner was blown up. The company bought the wreck of the Mario Leonhard, a big ship that had been stranded on the Goodwin Sands. Eight actors went- out to the wreck, but it blew so hard that the waves washed them off, and most of them were more or less hurt. A fresh start was made next day, and seven of the actors were scrambling to a raft at the side of the vessel when tho great charge of explosive went off prematurely and with fearful violence. One actor was blown into tho sea and rescued with difficulty by a lifeboat.