AFTERMATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 454, 8 September 1928, Page 25

AFTERMATH

EXCITING FILM STUNT HAS SEQUEL IN COURTROOM.

DUMMY IN NIGHTDRESS Holding the figure of a woman in his arms, a well-dressed man swung from a derrick high above the heads of an excited throng in Piccadilly, London. Slowly he was moved toward the fourth floor windows of a cafe,

where helpers waited to pull him to safety. The watchers gazed spellbound. This incident had a sequel in the Marlbrough Police Court recently, when Rex Davis, James Dale, and William Witham, of British International Picture Studios, were charged with obstructing the footway by causing a crowd to assemble. For the prosecution, it was said that the incidents rose out of the taking of a film titled “Adam’s Apple.” A police inspector said that a derrick was erected on the roof of the cafe, and a staging was fixed just below the fifth floor. Before the incident complained of, a dummy was swung from the derrick, but there was no complaint about that. Later there were two cameras on the pavement outside the Piccadilly Hotel taking the film. Dale appeared at the fifth floor window of the Popular Cafe, and was slung by the derrick from the staging across the fourth floor windows of that cafe about six times. A crowd gathered on the pavement. People gathered, and there was obstruction. Dale was holding what appeared to be a life-size dummy of a woman in a night-dress. “That was supposed to represent the heroine,” said counsel for the defence. The summons against Davis was withdrawn, but Dale and Witham were each fined £2, and £4 4s costs.