William Duncan — The Business of Making Thrills (1922) 🇺🇸

When the subject was first broached of my dwelling in print upon incidents which occur in the making of serial” thrills, it struck me that — well, that I should have some sort of alibi. Naturally I do not wish to be accused of placing too much import upon my participation in the various risks involved.

by William Duncan

Upon reflection, however, I decided that it might be interesting for picturegoers to know that the dangerous stunts accomplished in the making of a serial, or chapter-play, are figured out beforehand upon a mathematical basis.

I shall not enter upon a technical explanation of how and why certain achievements are possible, providing everything goes according to schedule; rather shall I endeavor to prove conclusively that those of us most experienced in picture-making seldom can be certain that what we expect will take place, even with the most careful calculations.

My Scottish forefathers were agreed with Bobby Burns that, “the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley.” And indeed I have found that Maister Burns must have foreseen the motion picture serial when he penned his notable words. “Gang aft agley” is uncannily right as regards pictures. Ask anyone who has taken part in the making of chapter-plays.

Often a simple stunt will end disastrously, while a comparatively difficult one will meet with success. It might be well at this point to give an example of just how the “big idea” is liable to “gang agley.”

Requirements of a serial episode called on me to leap a chasm in an automobile. Fremont Pass, in Southern California, was selected because of its depth. The pass was cut through by General Fremont in the early days to avoid moving his artillery over the mountains. It lies between San Fernando and Newhall, a section familiar to motorists and residents of Southern California.

At the point selected for my automobile leap, the pass is thirty-five feet across and about ninety feet, sheer, to the bottom. Many difficulties were experienced in our preliminary activities. We found that the machine could not be hoisted up the side which was to mark the getaway, so by means of block and tackle and the hand power of some twenty to thirty men, we pulled the car up with ropes and then built a bridge, across which it was taken for the jump.

Then as we gazed across the gap we realized that it would be necessary to dig a cut into which the car could be propelled at the conclusion of the leap. Unless this precaution were taken, as the side of the gap on which the car was to land sloped upward, it meant that though the car might jump safely across, it might also run backward and slip down the chasm.

So a little runway, or landing place, probably six feet longer than the length of the car, was dug. On the opposite side, from where I was to take-off, wooden grooves were built on the incline, down which the car would accumulate speed as it raced for the edge of the gap preparatory to hurling itself across the thirty-five-foot pass.

Explaining the use of these wooden grooves, I will point out that we figured the car, shooting straight from the grooves, would have but one objective point, the little cut in the wall across the gap. I must land in that cut or suffer the consequences.

I may say here that in making an automobile leap over a gap wedges or approaches are first built. These are long contrivances, lying flat and so built that they make a rising incline. This causes the automobile, gathering speed all the time, to leap upward as it takes off.

“All set, camera, let ‘er go!”

My car started down the incline, gaining momentum at every second, straight along the wooden grooves to the edge of the gap. The wedges are covered with grass and dirt so as not to show in the picture. As I leaped off at Fremont Pass, I had my feet on the brakes. I wondered in the few seconds of the leap whether I could jam them on at the exact second of landing to make certain that the car would not rebound from the cut in the wall and drop back into the chasm.

Crashing onto the other side, the impetus threw me hard against the brakes and into the dashboard but the brakes worked perfectly, as the force of my landing had thrown my feet against them at the proper moment. But something else, which had not been figured on at all, occurred. Every tire on the car was split, and I really believe that it was due to this fact, after crashing into the opposing wall, that an unfortunate rebound did not occur, even though my brakes had worked well.

One would imagine that after leaping thirty-five feet over a ninety-foot chasm hurdling a woodpile would prove easy. But here is where the “gang agley” phrase enters. The requirements of one serial story called upon myself and four companions to race in an automobile along a dirt road which paralleled a railroad track. At a certain point, a gang of outlaws had thrown a pile of railroad ties on the road to hinder us. Now in making an automobile leap, you must figure the stunt out to the finest mathematical point, but even then something may occur to spoil matters.

The degree of speed for an auto of a certain weight to safely jump a gap or obstruction, the exact amount of rise necessary at the takeoff, conditions of the road and various other items must be gone over carefully. Unless all these points are taken into account the chances of an accident are manifold.

A light, high-powered car will, of course, jump considerably farther and higher than a heavy one. The velocity at the moment of the takeoff is also one of the most important features of calculation to be considered. But after all these plans and figures, a tire may blow out after it is too late to stop, which would slow up the car and drop it into a gap; the float in the carburetor might stick; or, a speck of dirt or drop of water in the needle valve might cause trouble.

But to return to our dirt road and the race along the railroad tracks, I had planned to do the stunt before sundown, but on arriving on location, I was not satisfied with the provisions made for our safety. The approaching incline to the point where we should have been given a lift was made of wedges not more than five feet long, when they should have been as long as the wheel base of the car. But twenty minutes remained before the sun would retire, so we decided to try it.

Getting off from a curve in the road I drove toward the ties. The last time I looked at the speedometer we were making over fifty-five miles. Realizing that a shock of some sort might jam me against the wheel to the peril of my wishbone, I had placed an overcoat in front of my chest. But my pet scheme was to drop down under the dash in the event that the car might be turned over or be hurled off to one side in its flight.

But note what did happen! The front wheels ascended the wedge which was to give us our lift, but as I had feared the takeoff was too abrupt. The front wheels struck so sharply that the rear end of the car was sent straight up. I was lucky to be able to hang onto the steering gear let alone scramble down under the dash. Would she turn over completely or come down frontward? I lived a lifetime of suspense in those few seconds.

The shock which occurred when the front wheels struck sent one of the members of the party flying clear of the car, a distance of seventy-five feet. He was unhurt. Finally the front end of the car nosed downward; we hit the earth and with one wheel broken off to the hub bounced along in a jolty fashion, to a desirable place before the camera. The film effect was splendid but that abrupt takeoff came pretty close to being our earthly undoing. Therefore you can realize that where leaping a great chasm may be done exactly as per schedule and calculation, the jumping of a small wood pile can prove disastrous.

Those who help to make the serial form of picture are always learning, something new. Very often it has been my “stunt” to be jolted up and down while being dragged at full length over the hills or desert at the end of a rope attached to a saddle horn. I found, however, that it was almost impossible to secure good close-ups when being dragged behind a horse, as it was extremely difficult to place the camera in an advantageous position. If you attempt to secure close-ups by following the horse with an auto, the horse is as liable as not to become excited and run in such direction as to twist the rope about the auto or otherwise spoil the proceedings.

So we devised the scheme of having an arm extending from an automobile and the rope attached to the arm. Then the camera man was put in the car and I was dragged along behind in perfect range of the camera. Of course our long shots were taken with the horse doing the dragging.

But I soon discovered that instead of being bumped up and down as I dragged along the ground, the natural result was, that the car dragged me along steadily, and the even pull causing friction nearly set my clothes on fire. Personally I decided that I preferred to be dragged by a horse at lightning speed for a mile rather than be dragged by an automobile for fifty yards.

We might assume when it comes to diving that an ordinarily good diver would seldom meet with a mishap. But you can never tell in the serial business. Occasion called for my co-star, Miss Edith Johnson, and myself, to use a lineman’s motor car while crossing a lift bridge.

The script read that we were being chased by outlaws in an engine. When we were part way across the bridge, the end of the structure was to start upward so that a boat might pass underneath. I was to circumvent this occurrence by dropping Miss Johnson through the bottom of the bridge and then dive off myself.

Everything went as per schedule! The bridge started to lift; we jumped off the motor car and I dropped Miss Johnson through as planned so that the bandits could not reach her. Then it came my turn to jump. By this time the bridge end was well up and I had climbed up to the jumping point. I was wearing a beaver hat which had been used in scenes previously taken and it was also to be worn in other scenes, immediate follow-ups of the diving incident.

In pictures the scenes are not always taken in sequence. Sometimes the first part of a picture is taken last and vice versa. In any event I valued this hat. It was worth about $35. It was necessary to jump quickly, as I wished to save the hat. I figured I could not hold it in my hands, as I wished them to be free in breaking the force of the fall into the water. If I threw the hat into the water it might be whirled down stream and possibly cause a conflict with the scenes that already had been taken and incidentally require that additional scenes be made showing recovery of the hat. So I decided to wear it.

Everything would have worked out well, but when I hit the water, a distance of perhaps some seventy feet, my head was driven completely through the hat. About all there was left proved to be a necklace in the way of a rim and a few tattered ends. Once again calculations had gone wrong and incidentally it was necessary to send for another hat.

I have always had great success in using Mexicans in my pictures. Their Latin blood seems to make them natural-born actors. When you wish a band of Mexicans to yell in a picture, they yell; they do more than to simply wave their arms and make motions with their mouths as many of our American extra people do. Whatever your Mexican does he does as though life itself depended upon it. But I do not always tell the Mexicans just what the object of their activities are. Sometimes we get better results by deceiving them.

In one particular instance it was required that a gang of Mexicans chase me in order to secure a valuable paper. Experience had taught me that frequently extra people when supposed to roughly handle a leading man in pictures show a trace of timidity. I wished rough action. Did I get it?

In order to spur them on I called the band of twenty or thirty Mexicans and told them that somewhere concealed about my person was a five-dollar gold-piece. “It might be in my shoe,” I said, “in my hat, the cuffs of my trousers, somewhere perhaps inside my belt;” the point being that the man who found it could keep it. This I figured would provide strenuous action for the “medium shot” and after sufficient footage was obtained, I would have the paper taken from the pocket in a “close-up.”

Everything was ready. Supposed to be wounded, I began to run in a hobbly fashion. Just about the time I reached the camera for the big scene, the Mexicans were on me. We had timed the chase correctly. This band of extra people showed less timidity than any others whom it had been my pleasure to direct. By the time they were through I was absolutely in rags and tatters. No tramp in the front ranks of Mr. Coxey’s celebrated army could have boasted my bizarre appearance by the time the gold-piece had been discovered.

I had not counted upon my clothes being torn off, as I needed that particular suit in succeeding scenes. So there was nothing to do but go ahead and take other portions of the picture while I waited a week for a tailor to provide an exact duplicate. It was a great scene, but calculations had again gone wrong.

Where water work is concerned there is dire danger of unanticipated accidents occurring which threaten lives and the success of the picture. In this connection I recall an incident which took place some years ago at Santa Monica, one of the beach cities near Los Angeles.

A form of torture adopted for serial work is that of hanging men from a wharf in a manner where their toes just touch the bottom of a rowboat. The idea is, that when the tide goes down and the rowboat with it, the unfortunate victims will suffer a worthy or an unworthy death according to the viewpoint of the story writer and the audience.

In order to get sufficiently clear from the wharf and to provide a place for the cameras, we had an L-shaped platform made of three by sixteen timbers, built away from the wharf. A very heavy sea was running, and those familiar with the beaches realize that working too close under the piles is fraught with considerable danger as the waves came pounding in. So we figured to be in the clear as much as possible.

Everything had been gone into and, so far as we realized, no detail overlooked when it came time to start action. Just as I said “camera,” from my position on the far end of the L, there was a tremendous crash. The entire L with its cameras and twenty people had plunged into the water. Despite our carefulness a correct estimation had not been made of the weight which the L would sustain. The platform itself had been nailed to the pier.

There was much confusion, as may be imagined when twenty people suddenly found themselves dropped into a heavy sea, with timbers and flotsam rolling all about them. The gravest possibility lay in the fact that anyone tossed by the waters beneath the wharf would be in grave danger, because the surf was running so high that a swimmer easily could be thrown like a toothpick against the barnacled piles that supported the pier.

It developed that no one was seriously hurt, and I called, “How about the cameras?” “I have mine,” answered George Robinson. It seemed that Robinson, with true cameraman instinct, had held onto the strap which was connected with the magazines. But the magazines were all that had remained with the outfit. Fortunately the film was saved and several hours of hard work rescued from the salty deep.

I recall what “Slim” Cole [Slim Cole] said to Bill McCall [William McCall] when they came up. These two boys were the ones we intended to leave hanging with their toes in the rowboat when the big crash came. “Slim” emerged with the water streaming out of his black whiskers and makeup. He look a look at McCall and roared with the voice like a Jersey bull, “Oh, Bill, you sure look sweet.” This caused a general laugh, eased the tension which had existed for a moment, and quick action by the life guards soon restored the members of the company to places of safety. Rescuing all those people was remarkable work when one considers the roughness of the waters.

There was a humorous incident in this connection which provided everyone a smile after the anxiety was over. Miss Johnson, my co-star, had spent about all summer knitting me one of those jazz sweaters which at the time were quite the vogue. She had just finished it the morning of our watery experience.

Before starting work under the wharf I was taking off the sweater for fear that I might tear or soil it. Naturally I was quite proud of the beautiful, form-fitting garment, and everyone had congratulated Miss Johnson upon her clever work and myself upon how well it looked. But Miss Johnson insisted that I keep it on, as she declared she could darn any little tear, whereas if I tore my coat it would require a tailor.

After the L had broken it had been at least twenty minutes before I emerged from the water. Walking along the wharf I realized that something was impeding my progress. Imagine my disappointment when, upon looking down, I found the beautiful, form-fitting jazz sweater that Miss Johnson had worked so long upon, water-soaked, stretched and sagging in a rather pathetic manner about my knees. It reminded one of a shipwrecked kimono.

Members of our company traveled to the Santa Cruz Islands, off the coast of California, for the purpose of making scenes, among which was a dive of some eighty feet from a cliff into the ocean. In this particular scene I was diving to escape guards. The guards were supposed to shoot at their victim after he had dived and then leave, assuming that they had killed him. Because of the extremely rough water the boat from which we were shooting the picture rocked so violently that it was impossible to get good close-ups, so we decided to return to the studio and do the close-ups in our tank.

The idea was to show me sinking in the water, apparently struck by a bullet from the guards’ guns, and later swimming under water to escape. Now it is almost impossible for a good swimmer to simulate drowning, as the natural buoyancy of the body tends to make him float. So, in order that I preserve a natural appearance, we had to recourse to artificial means.

Arriving at the studio, I had an iron ring attached to the cement bottom of our tank, which, by the way, is ten feet deep. A rope was connected with this ring and the other end adjusted in my belt. At one end of the tank men were placed to pull the rope through the ring and draw me down, so that a natural appearance of sinking in the water would ensue and show upon the film.

We discovered also that bullets shot from a rifle did not make sufficient splash to be very noticeable upon the screen. So we secured some heavy iron nuts and stationed men to hurl these as close as they could to my head without hitting me.

Everything was ready. I gave the signal for the camera. This also signified that the men with the iron bolts were to begin their bombardment. When the bullet effect had been attained and a sufficient peppering effect shown in splashes, the men were to start pulling, and in a relaxed condition I was to sink below the surface. Action went according to schedule except for one item. Bing! Right on top of my head, one of those iron nuts struck just as the men started pulling me down.

Downward I went, dragged by the rope attached to the ring at the tank bottom. I was not exactly senseless, but for the life of me I could not imagine why I was down in the water. Finally it came to me that I was attached to a rope. But what for? I could feel it about my legs, at my belt, in my hands when I reached for it. Try as I might I could not think of the reason for that rope. My brain cleared a bit and details of the rope contrivance slowly came back to my mind.

I grabbed for the loose end of the slip and seemed to get hold of every portion of it save the loose end. When I did get at the slipknot the water had swollen it and in my weakened condition I tugged until it seemed as though my lungs were bursting. At last I managed to free myself and started swimming upward, reaching the top black in the face from lack of wind.

My band of assistants exclaimed in chorus, “Gee, that guy sure can stay under water a long time.” There wasn’t one of those chaps but what was absolutely sure that his iron missile had missed me by at least two inches. I presume had the idea been to bean me that everyone would have claimed credit for hitting the mark — my head.

If an actor-director engaged in the hazardous roles of picture making manages it so that his calculations are fairly accurate, he eventually may retire to a nice, quiet, secluded spot and rest in peace. But if his calculations have not been fairly accurate he may retire to a nice, quiet, secluded mortuary and rest in pieces.

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One of the little things in every serial-actor’s life. The idea is to get as near as possible to the saw without spoiling the picture. Stunts like this have got to be timed to the minute. The man on the floor is trying to cut the ropes that bind him and the poor devil on the log is wishing he had never signed a contract to make that serial

“This was easy. All I had to do was to lie in the middle of the road with my hands and feet tied together and let a log wagon run over me”

—

“One of my favorite forms of exercise is illustrated here. I know of no more pleasant way to spend the day than jumping from a moving train to a ladder suspended from an airplane. Incidentally it is one of the thrills that makes the audiences gasp most audibly”

“This is my most popular portrait. I did this one day for an episode in a Vitagraph serial. It got over. So did I”

“I figured that if I told the extras there was a five-dollar gold-piece concealed about my person, and that the one who found it could have it. I’d get a good realistic scene. Did I? If you saw that episode in ‘Daredevil Dick, you know I did”

—

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The Superman

Night was approaching.

From Brooklyn bridge the lights on New York’s skyscrapers glowed with the richness of a ruby. They were ever changing, yet ever the same. One moment richly opalescent, then scintillating, flashing and sparkling like a Koh-I-noor, an Orloff or a Cullinan. They had the lure of the world in their Argus-eyes; held out promises of wealth, love and future fame. They were loreleis chanting runes ot the wonderful days that were yet to be.

Midway upon the bridge a youth who had come from a farm to seek his fortune stood. The lure of the lights was upon him. His bosom heaved, his heart beat fast, his eyes glowed.

“I shall conquer,” he exclaimed with the grandiose egotism of youth, raising his hand to the lacquer sky. “Men and women, greatest of the great, shall cower beneath my gaze; they shall shrink at my touch; sink supine before me.”

How strange are the foibles of fate! It all came true. He became a director in a moving picture studio.

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Collection: Photoplay Magazine, February 1922