FILM TRAGEDIES.

Shannon News, 17 April 1923, Page 4

FILM TRAGEDIES.

TRUE TO LIFE. Those thrilling- wild animal scenes which are so often thrown on the screen have proved intensely dangerous on occasions, and they are responsible for at least two deaths and many cases of injury. Thus a Spanish toreador a fow years ago lost his life when posing bei'ore the camera at the horns of an enraged bull, while in one of those popular Wild West pictures introducing savage animals a performer was killed by a lion which had been maddened by a bullet wound.

The most fruitful cause of cinema, tragedies undoubtedly lies at the door of drowning, at least four accomp’ished artists meeting their deaths in this way when sharing in stirring scenes.

One of these fatalities, which occurred on the River Seine just outside Paris, was rendered particularly pathetic from the fact that the unfortunate victim might have been saved had not the operator continued to turn the camera handle utterly unaware that the doomed man was not acting the piece with marvellous fideH(y.