ACCIDENTS TO ORDER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5393, 27 February 1929, Page 2

ACCIDENTS TO ORDER.

MAKING FILM SENSATIONS

INSTANCES OF LUCKY ESCAPES.

If any stranger had happened! to be strolling over the beautiful down between Alton and Andover one Sunday morning recently he would have had the shock of his life. He would have sqen a tr,ain running at fifty miles an hour down a long incline straight towards a. huge lorry which had been driven right across the line. Tiie driver of. the had left ’t on the level-cressing, leapt out, and run for his life. Next moment the train crashed into the lorry, and a fepr,ful explosion occ.urred. 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 acc.l-* dent, the pictures of, which will be seen in a new English film. The cost of this cine scene was £7OOO. Accidents of this kind on a big, sc.ale 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 yejars ago at South River, New Jersey, when a, whole train loaded with dummies was r,un off a trestle bridge at full speed intel a lake. The engine exploded with a fearful roar.

When the train 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 thq camera-men clicked their thrilling records.

A precipice a.ct is always popular with film-g’pers. One of the best ever staged was when a huge motor-car was sent over the grept cliffs above the Hudson River called the Palisades.

It was a wonderful sight, for the great limousine exploded in mid-air ; then, turning a complete somersault, was blown into a thousand pieces. One of a chunk of metal weighing at least, a pound, actually grazed the head of. one of the camera-men.

Another arranged accident whic.h came to being a real one was when an expert motor-cyclist was engaged to ride full-tilt into 'the London Docks. The idea was that he should Jump clear of the cycle as it fell, just as Eddie Giffor,cl used to dot in his famous diving act at the Hippodrome. But the exhaust of the machine got caught in the lining of the cyclist’s coa.t and dragged him down into the dejep, dark water. Luckily the pac.e and weight of the machine caused the cloth to rip and set the man free. Otherwise he would most certainly have been drowned'.

Another ease in which r,e;alism nearly brought about, disaster occurred near Brighton. The drama, was played on top of an eighty-foot cliff, and the man was supposed to fall over the edge of the cliff. It was arranged that he should 1 dretp on a plank fixed just bejlow the edge, but he went clean over the plank and' into the sea. If he had not been a firstclass swimmer nothing could have saved him, for he .was more than half stunned by the fall. One of the biggest and most c.ostly “accidents” ever staged in England was in the making of “The Tattooed Will,” where a liner, was blown upThe company bought the wreck of the Marie 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 af 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 edge; of the vessel when the great charge of explor sive went off prematurely and with fearful violence. One actor was blown into the sea and' rescued with difficulty by a lifeboat.