GAMBLE WITH DEATH

Hokitika Guardian, 25 July 1931, Page 6

GAMBLE WITH DEATH

CAREER OF STUNT AVIATOR. PAID TO- RISK DISASTER. “‘There’s no thrill like that provived by the ‘flying fool’, and there’s no job like that of the man who provides the thrill or the fellow who films it!” Propped up in his hospital bed, ban dagecl and pale, hut with a cheerful grin playing about his lips, Stanley Rodwell,' crack film camera-man voiced the philosophy of his calling to a “Sunday Chronicle” interviewer. Only a day or two before he liar come about as close to the next world as anyone, ever has. A passenger in a two-seater machine, he was filming the pursuit of one ’plane hv nnothe* over a London suburb, when the engine stopped and the ’plane crashed in a back garden.

The pilot, Richard Bush, was badly injured, and bis companion was in a condition that will also mean his de tent-ion in bed for weeks. “Wlmt did I fee] like just befor the crash?” the film-man echoed fron his nest of pillows. CONCERN FOR CAMERA. “At the last minute I suddenly remembered the cost of film per rooi and the thought flashed through my mind: ‘I hope the camera survives! There was any amount of good stuff in that little box-film that might have cost the Jives of two men to shoot.

“Well,,' after the crash. L thought first of Bush, of course, and then my mind went on working in its groove of a moment before. I was amazingly relieved when someone told me that the film was safe.” Much ha sheen written about tin amazing nerve and daring of the “flying fools,” the professional aviation stunters whose whole lives are a gamble with fate, with death as the stake. But seldom has appropriate tribute been paid to the c-amera-meii. who take practically the same risks, and who are never seen on the screen

.Dick Grace, greatest of all flying dare-devils, has always been the first, to pay tribute to the courage of the man with the camera. “We’re the boys who make the thrills,” he one< said, “but ours is an easier job than that of the fellows who put 'em on celluloid. “It comes easy to us, because it’s our trade, but the camera-mcx aren’t professional fivers, and They have to do a highly technical job with other • fellows all the time trying t< break their necks for them.”

RISKY WORK IN BRITAIN. Grase and his colleagues have their counterparts on this side of the Atlantic). The daring feats of the doublcwho have worked in the British International picture “The;;'Flying Fool” the one that was being made when Stanley Rodwell crashed—do things that rank with the best efforts oi American stimters. “1 guess that Claude Friese Green knows about the tin-ills we get,” Rodwell went on. (Friese Green is Number ohe cameraman for “Tbe Flying Fool,” Rodwell is Number Two) “He’s bad as many narrov. squeaks as any man in the game. “When they were making a film in Spain on one occasion" his party were shooting tbe charge of a band of cavalry. To get the pictures a motni ear containing the camera had to be raced down a boulder-strewn mountain road.

“Tbe driver bad nerve all right. He trod on its good and hard at the start of tbe ride; and the machine bounding all over the place, kept pace with the madly galloping troops of cavalry Then an unusually large boulder got in the way of the car. The driver wrenched at the steering wheel just too late and the machine struck the rock and bounded straight in the air. “It, turned a complete somersault and landed in the ditch in a cloud of dust. By one of those amazing freaks which are always happening in the game, not a single member of the party was badly hurt.” The 'injured cameraman wriggled his shoulders and settled himself into a more _ comfortable position. He lighted a cigarette with one hand and ' went on with his story. CLAUDE’S BIGGEST THRILL. “Probably the biggest air thrill that Claude ever got was when be was a j passenger in a machine that was | racing the Cornish Rivera express,” | he related. “Friese Green was busily | filming the express when, just as the I plane drew level with the engine tbe motor gave out entirely., and the pilot was in just the same position as mine was except that it seemed certain that he would plump straight on to -the express train instead of roof tops. “I don’t suppose anyone has had a bigger thrill than those two men had. “They were so near to the top of t-’ie engine that the smoke and sparks from the chimney flew in their .faces. Tn a last despairing effort the pilot kicked again at the rudder pedal, and the machine swerved sligthly, just cleared the top of the train and came ’ down on the track alongside.”