406 



Popular Science Montlily 



sufficient for thirty minutes' work 



Pcrhaijs the most familiar thrill whicii 

 finds its way through the dickering lens 

 is the automobile smashup. One of the 

 most thrilling feats in which automobiles 

 ha\e figured on the screen this year took 

 place in California recently, when a 

 motor-car in which the heroine was 

 hastening to her hero, speeded over a 



camera-man, being directly under the 

 hurtling car, caught it as it fiew, meteor- 

 like, through the air. And it nearh' 

 crashe<l down upon him! 



The car flew seventy-five feet. It 

 just happened to alight right side up, so 

 that the girl might just as well have 

 stayed in. But that would ha\e been 

 contrarv to the new code of thrills which 



TliL Automobile Was Backed Up a Considerable Distance and Was Pointed Directly 

 Toward the Gap, After Which the Steering Wheel Was Locked and They "Let Her Go!" 



broken bridge and leaped through the 

 air to the ground seventy-five feet away. 

 There was really danger in this picture; 

 danger, not for the heroine, but for the 

 man who was turning the camera-crank. 

 The bridge was carefully smashed up 

 previously and the central part taken 

 out. The approach was built up much 

 after the fashion that ski runways are 

 prepared in order that the skiiers will fly 

 into the air when they strike the runway. 

 In the picture as it appeared on the 

 screen, the girl dashed down the road- 

 way, unaware of the fact that the bridge 

 was destroyeil. Indeed, she drove the 

 car at iiigh speed almost to the approach. 

 In the mind of the audience, that car 

 kept on going, with the girl inside, an<l 

 leajied the gap. In reality, she got out 

 of the car when she had slopped il at 

 the bridge ajjproach. Then the car was 

 backed ui> a considerable tlistance down 

 the road, il was pointed, or aimed, 

 directly at the bridge and the steering 

 wheel locked so that the car woukl not 

 swerve. It was started — gained spectl, 

 dashed out upon the bridge, hurtled 

 over the gap and c.unr crashing down 

 to earth very much broken up. The 



the industry (shall we say "art?") has 

 adopted — Let thrills be as they m,^^ — 

 safety first. 



Sacrificed to Make a Motion-Picture 

 Holiday 



A motion-picture company reiently 

 "staged" a costly picture in which one 

 aerojilane swoojied down upon another 

 in mid-air, dro|)|)ed a bomli and destroyed 

 it. While the lower plane which was two 

 hundred feet above the ground, seemed 

 to be mo\ing at a fairh' high speed, in 

 reality it was stationary, being suspended 

 by strong but invisible wires between two 

 cliffs. It seemed to mo\e because the 

 nio\ie camera was mounted on an auto- 

 mobile which was moving rapidh- below 

 it. The narrow focus of the camera lens 

 ]M'evcnte(l either of the cliff's from being 

 shown. 



The feat is interesting also for a 

 tragic reason. When the airman in the 

 upper ])lane dropped the bomb, he was 

 directly above the destroyed plane. 

 The explosion fonx'd an air wave up- 

 ward which unbalanceil the moving 

 plane, it toppled over and the aeronaut 

 was crushed to ileath in his fall. 



