Staging the Celluloid Thriller 



By George F. Worts 



GOING to the lioltom of the sea for 

 motion-pictures was accoin[)lisiie(I 

 for the first time about two years 

 ago by (k'orse and Mdwin Williamson, 

 brothers who invented and perfected an 

 undersea motion - picture apparatus. 

 Their apparatus for making photographs 

 under water was fully described in 

 these pages at the time. But the <Sl. 



results they obtained then can ^-- pfJS^ 

 not be compared wi 

 results the\-liaveobtai 

 in a photo play which 

 been in process of film 

 ing during the past 

 year in the waters of 

 the Caribbean near 

 Nassau, Jamaica. 



Jitles Verne and 



Daniel . Defoe ' on 



Ihe Screen 



They took a 

 most difficult sub- 

 ject for their scen- 

 ario. It was a 

 composite story 

 based on the most 

 usable parts of 

 Jules Verne's 

 "Twenty Thou- 

 sand Leagues 

 Under the Sea" 

 and Daniel De- 

 foe's famous "Robinson Crusoe." 



When the picture was first contempla- 

 ted, Stuart Paton, the director, thought 

 that he would borrow a submarine from 

 the United States Navy for the parts of 

 the story in which Jules Verne describes 

 the submarine. The United States 

 Navy was not especially enthusiastic 

 about lending a submarine, and it was 

 discovered that Jules Verne's submarine 

 had very little in common with the 

 submarine of to-day. 



Accordingly a submarine was built 

 especially for the picture. It took six 

 months to build, and when it was finisiied 

 it could dive, rise to the surface and 

 shoot a regulation torpedo. The deck 

 of this unusual craft had one hatch and 



It Will Be Recalled That the Williamson 

 Apparatus Consists of a Collapsible Tube 

 Suspended from the Bottom of a Barge 



a very stunted conning tower. In shape 



only did it resemble the U-boat of to-day. 



It was engineless. It was submerged 



l)y means of inlet valves, and it came to 



the surface by forcing out the water 



with compressed air which was carried 



in tanks. Thirty men comprised the 



crew. In the bottom of the 



hull a hatchway (an air lock) 



was provided, so that the crew 



in their diving-suits could 



climb out upon the ocean 



bottom. The maximum 



d iving depth was abou t 



forty feet. 



The ocean and its 

 inhabitants pro- 

 vided a great deal 

 of excitement and 

 danger. Most of 

 the time the ocean 

 was rough, too 

 rough for taking 

 pictures. Most of 

 the dramatic ac- 

 tion of the film 

 took 1)1 ace on the 

 ocean floor of the 

 Caribbean at a 

 depth of about 

 thirty feet. The 

 water near Nassau 

 was found to be so 

 clear that artificial 

 lighting was not necessary. In the older 

 Williamson undersea picture artificial 

 lights were frequently needed. Since 

 then, however, the apparatus has been 

 considerabh- impro\ed, and faster cam- 

 era lenses have also been found. 



The Williamson apparatus, it will be 

 recalled, consists of a large collapsible 

 tube suspended from the bottom of a 

 barge. At the bottom of the tube is a 

 camera chamber provided with a win- 

 dow. The camera-man sits with his 

 camera behind this window. In rough 

 weather the barge would roll and the 

 chamber and its occupant would swing 

 back and forth. This motion of course 

 prevented picture-taking. The tides 

 furnished another serious handicap. On 



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