American Cinematographer - February 1996 - 91

Near left: Joel

the soon-to-be bride of Merian C. Cooper - brings a
welcome softness to the basically masculine drama
with her youth and soft southern accent. Hugh

McCrea,

Dorothy Jordan
and Robert

Herbert, playwright and scenarist turned comedian,

Armstrong react

adds considerable humor and heart. Laurence Oliver

to the crash of

originally was assigned as Lelewer, but he was re¬
placed by William Davidson as Follette's rather likable
"sugar daddy."

Dix's

Astor and Erich
von

The most memorable characterization in the

Stroheim

the terrified

show, however, is the amazing von Stroheim in a bra¬

performance that caricatures traditionally over¬
bearing Teutonic movie directors. Surrounded by a
small army of yes-men and cameramen as his pilots
take off, he says, "Be sure to keep them in the cameras
we
might catch a nice crackup!" He throws memo¬
rable screaming tantrums: "This is supposed to be
war! Hell! Death! Destruction! Not a Sunday-school
picnic!" After instructing a pilot to bring his plane out

plane.
Mary

Far left:

wife and the

vura

tyrannical
director.

dive and "kiss"

a cannon

with his wheels, he tells

eramen

in accordance with

studio rule.

Among the nostalgic charms of the show is
the sequence shot at Graumann's Chinese Theatre
during a real gala premiere. Radio announcer Free¬
man
Lang is in the forecourt interviewing the arriving
celebrities, as he did for many years, and there are
glimpses of Edna Mae Oliver and comedians Bert
Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. Dix and his pals stand
next to one of the stone guard dogs that still flank the
entrance today.
The crash of Gibson's first plane, including its
eccentric flight to the ocean and subsequent dive into
the water, was staged by Dick Grace. RKO paid $500
for the old aircraft. An optical printing effect by
Linwood Dunn, ASC slowed the action of the splash.
The crashed plane was placed inside the breakwater
next to the Santa Monica Municipal Pier for scenes in
which the Coast Guard boat arrives and Dix is taken

from the

his

leading man, "I hope he doesn't knock your head
off. If he does there's one consolation: you'll never
miss it." He also accuses the man of acting like a
stuffed cow. He twists his wife's arm and is said to
"beat the behoosis out of her." Von Stroheim's death
scene is milked for all it's worth: he reacts to the bul¬
let and

staggers through the door in one shot,

stumbles back onto a landing for a tumble downstairs
in the next, rises again on a lower landing only to fall
backward down

more steps to the hangar floor, and
finally expires in a closer shot.
It is generally assumed that von Stroheim
was indulging in self-caricature, but perhaps he
wasn't. Despite his carefully nurtured reputation as a
Prussian martinet, his former leading lady in The Wed¬
ding March, Fay Wray, found him "gentle and rather
shy," and his film editor son, Joseph, said that "Dad
was a
pussycat." The more likely models for von Furst

wreckage to an ambulance on the pier. Un¬
fortunately, as soon as the plane was positioned and
cut free, it sank like a sashweight while Dix, thankful
that he wasn't aboard, watched from the pier. The
scene was made later without
mishap at the same lo¬
cation with flotation-equipped wreckage in the water.
Another stunt that went awry turned out
much better than anticipated - a perfect example of
"falling upstairs" that made amends for the Santa
Monica fiasco. The scene, in which Woody's plane
crashes and burns, has become legendary as one of
Grace's stunts, but he was not actually in the plane.
The full-scale aircraft was launched without a pilot
down an off-camera ramp built high above the set of
the bombed-out town square.
The late Harold Wellman recalled with
amusement that the

some

supposed to arc out
and crash in the street, but when the plane cleared the
ramp it was lifted by an updraft and flew directly over
the

cameras

plane

was

and crashed into the roof of the tallest

other movie.
Akeleys, Bell & Howells, Walls and Mitchells are all
there, bare and blimped, hand-cranked and motordriven, all manned by real operators or assistant cam¬

building on the set. Explosives in the aircraft set the
building on fire. The flaming plane tumbled down the
face of the building. Firefighters rushed into the scene
and worked feverishly to save the other sets. Several
cameras caught the whole thing, the true embodiment
of von Furst's wish for "a nice crackup."
The crash scene was tightened up and several
ground shots were cut after the Archainbaud team
took charge. Cutting to a different camera angle at the
moment the aircraft hit the building dramatized the

February 1996

American

were

Michael Curtiz, whose career had

survived the

drowning of three extras on the set of Noah's Ark at
Warners, and Howard Hughes, whose Hell's Angels
cost

four lives.
There

eramen

are

probably

more cameras

view here than in any

and

cam¬

Cinematographer

American Cinematographer - February 1996

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