LIVES LOST

Hokitika Guardian, 3 April 1930, Page 3

LIVES LOST

F 01? FILM THRILLS

(By Iris Barry.)

That film stars do not actually jump /rum precipitous cliffs, though they seem to do so on tile screen, is accepted by everyone. Of the unnamed and intrepid people who really do him “stunts'” we have known nothing. Now Dick Grace, one of the most extraordinary figures in Hollywood’s film community, has written a book, “The Squadron of Death”. It is the perfectly unaffected, straightforward account of his career as a “stunt” nian. \ 5 TO 1 ON DEATH. Everyone who remembers the aeroplane crashes in “Wings” will have seen the writer’s work. He agreed to crash a Spad machine in a No Mail’ Land complete with shell holes, barbed wire, and the rest, and to turn it over on its back not over fifty feet from a spot where the cameras would be. Men with fire extinguishers, an ambulance, a doctor, and a hospital aeroplane stood by. On his way to the aeroplane, Grace heard onlookers betting 5 to 1 that he would lie killed, and 10 to 1 against his being able to walk out of the wreck; he laid some bets on himself, went up, climbed, and posed the Spad earthward. At ten feet above the ground and a speed of 35 miles an hour, 1 jerked the stick aver to the right, giving just a slight left rudder with a dull thud die wing hit and crumpled, then the * anding carriage crashed. The poor ship tottered over to the other wing me! broke that, and the thing started iver on its back I was upside down.

His telling of the story is good enough, but the man himself is in tlie last few lines, which be relates how, after looking over the wreckage and noting that the nearest camera was only 17 feet away, “I went over and bad some lunch, collected in,v. bets, and then Gunboat and Frank and I finished our pinochle game.. This whole book i.s a surprising affair. It projects a vivid light on film production and people in it, but still more it gives an unforgettable insight into as strange a character as has ever put pen to paper. This man whose daily bread is danger cannot even be called foolhardy. He is a fatalist for jvboni there are two kinds of stunts, one done by a real expert and the other by rash amateurs, for whom lie has J a hearty contempt. When one of flmse is killed while stunting at an unsafe altitude, be writes: “The p-or damned fool! He ought to have known better.” The expert, however, is either lucky (or unlucky. Sooner or later, accord ing- to Mr Grace., nil the good -stunt men'either get kill'd or go insane. That he himself, should have survived is remarkable, especially when oil' roads his crisp, unemotional account of the time he broke his neck /also in “Wings” when he crashed the Fokker) or was horribly burned when doublin'* for a female star. But that he shoul I have kept his nerve is most extraordinary. Every other page describes some experience sufficient to break it, and not the least horrible those which crippled but did not kill people be knew. As for the casualties, of which filmgoers hear never a word, they seem endless :

A woman was drowned doubling for the feminine lead in a prominent Western Star’s picture. Following this two doubles were drowned trying to swim a whirlpool in a river in Arizona One more was added to the Squadron of Death when A! Johnson hit high-tension wires and was burned to a crisp just before be was to do a stunt for “Hell’s Angels.” A snowslide killed one and two more were injured when a director blew up the mast of a ship for an historical epic. TV time comes when Grace himself is no longer, as he thought he would remain, immune to shocks. Four of the eight crack “stunt” airmen he has gathered about him have been killed, one in “Hell’s Angels.” At night again T could hear their voices My dreams were filled with their gaunt faces. It seemed as though they gibed and chided me for lingering so long behind. But though he decided to retire and become a lawyer, Dick Grace went back to fflm-stunting.'v “The Squadron of Death” contains half a dozen stories which are unforgettable, related with a rare economy as effective as any literary style: • His leg bones had pierced the heels of his shoes, and then some. He was iniuried internally still he was con-

scious. Mr Grace goes to the cinema often, because although he says he cannot get a thrill himself out of a crack-up when it happens, he does when he sees it on the screen afterwards. And in the audience around him he sometimes hears members of the audience remarking how clever the film-makers are getting, the way they fake accidents. He remarks; “Those who make and patronise motion pictures have put, us properly in our place. We are absolutely unimportant.” As lie explains, with charming naivette:

The mniontv of the stars do not take their own risks, nor do they pretend to. ft wpukl he folly for them, as their salary is such that they must think twice before trying anything hazardous. The average film “stunt” man earns €3O a week.