FILM HORSEMANSHIP

Hokitika Guardian, 16 October 1920, Page 4

FILM HORSEMANSHIP

(By G. Ward Price); PARIS. “How do you mount a horse as one sees you do it on the .film? I asked Douglas Fairbanks the other morning. “You seem to run towards it, then there is a streak of light, and there you suddenly are in the saddle with the brcWho busting about underheath you.” “It’s just a sort of hand-spring,” he replied. “I • can jump on to a horse’s back from 14 feet away. Like this!” He took a flying leap at the balustrade of the balcony of the Hotel Crillon, on the other aide of which was a 30 "foot drop into the Place de la Concorde. His hands hit the coping first, his body twisted in the air, and there he sat astride. “It’s just a trick,” said Douglas apologetically. “It’s not what one would call horsemanship. I love horses ; I have all sorts at home.” “But doesn’t the horse shy sometimes as you take a flying leap at it like, that?” “Often. Then I have to adjust my balance by my arms before I fall into the saddle. I take a bad toss now and then. I’ve broken that finger, and that, and my thumb and my wrist, and I’ve had my feet stamped on a lot by horses. ' But it’s only the outlying parts of one that get hurt,” he added. “And what about dropping from a high-up window and landing astride in the saddle?” “Well, I never rehearse that first. It’s too risky. I just have a shot, and if it conies off I let it go at that. Last year I dropped about 20 feet on to a horse’s back. I meant to hit the saddle with my heels first, so as to break the fall, and then slip my legs down on either side. I missed it by half an inch, hit with the inside of my knee, and strained my muscles in the lower part of the back, so that now I can’t straddle wider than that”—and he slid his legs apart on the polished floor like a dancer doing the splits. “When I was a boy at Denver, Colorado, I learnt all those tricks,” Douglas Fairbanks went on. “It has always amused me to try different stunts with ordinary objects. That chair now—can you do this?” And he performed a complicated handspring over the back —a purpose to which I feel sure General Tasker Bliss, the peace delegate and the last distinguished American to occupy these rooms, did not put the hotel furniture. _ ,