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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1972)
, .j""' " ' , . ,7 , , r. Movie gore- how Holly by Martin Kasindorf HOLLYWOOD - A high-velocity bullet hits a victim in the forehead and passes through his skull blowing out blood and brains. A bikini-clad girl is picked off by a sniper while swimming and the pool fills sickeningly with blood. A wicked deputy sheriff is backed into a maw of a hay baler and is ground out like sausage meat. These grisly scenes from "The Godfather," "Dirty Harry" and 'Tha Liberation of LB. Jones" typify the new kind of gory "realism" that is filling movie screens these days - and creating new challenges for a -group of previously unsung Hollywood artisans, tha special-effects men. When a script calls for a stool pigeon to be hemstitched by machine guns or for a sweet old lady to be set on fire or the anti-hero to be blown to bits in a car. crash - all in dying technicolor - the special-effects men dip into their bag of tricks. "What we do is an art - there's no way you can boil it down to a science," says Universale effects chief, Roland Chinique. There's an old saying that nothing is impossible for us. Stilt - bullet hits in people's faces are real toughies." For the bullet hit in "The Godfather" scene, effects man Tony Paglia used a "blood gun" to fire an air-propelled gelatin capsule of red liquid at the forehead of the actor. As it hit him, an explosive charge called a "squib" simultaneously blew our red rubber debris and pink powder from the back of the actor's head. The squib is one of the oldest special-effects devices but it has been constantly refined by Hollywood's experts. It is a tiny, smokeless explosive charge mounted on a thin steel plate backed with foam rubber. It is usually covered with a small latex "blood bag" filled with a bright red, gelatin-based fluid, and is detonated by flashlight batteries strapped to the actor or wired to a control source. . Squibs and bags of "blood" and debris can be taped under the clothing or even built into an actor's face, blowing off harmlessly to reveal the make-up "raw wound" of his real skin beneath. For Faye Dunaway's protracted death scene in "Bonnie and Clyde, one of the first new-realism shockers, scores of squibs were wired to Miss Dunaway's clothing, her skin and to All Seats Reserved $3.50-$4.5f$5.50. Purctose tickets auditorium ticket office 12 noon til curtain, flood seats available!! Show the bear you care. Welcome the Hamm's bear back from hibernation by buying his specially designed 12-pack of cans. This limited-supply package is available where you see this display. Hamm's.as always, is brewed natural. -for people who really like their beer. 3 THEODORE KAMM COMPANY. ST. PAUL MINN. SAN FRANCISCO. LOS ANGELES wood does it enrow-na : nnn Mr i i t J lj y fi jJm 44 mm-m JM I n w ' Ay' pre-punched holes concealed in tha car's body. Effects man Danny Lee rigged them in connecting sequences, then detonated them by running a line from the battery across a primitive "nailboard" of pins connected to the explosives. Hollywood's 190 special-effects men are following a trade that has been passed down to them from their forebears in the silent-movie era. Most have been at it for years. And it isn't easy for newcomers to break into the business. First the aspirant must spend two years training as a prop maker. Then he must devote 1,500 hours to perfecting such lowly skills as creating rain and fake snow and making a spear appear to miss the hero by inches (on invisible cable tracks). Later, he must take a state-approved course in explosives and pass an 80-page exam to win a Class 3 powderman's license. After more experience, he can progress to Class 1 and, at last, become a full-fledged special-effects man where he will make about $1 6.000 a year at a maior studio. For an effects man, even the most harrowing scenes soon become routine. Like setting people ablaze. In a recent "Marcus Welby" TV segment, guest star Sally Field had to run around in a totally burning muu-muu. The special-effects wizards put alcohol on the cloth because it leaves a vapor barrier between the surface and the flames. They also used thermal auto-racing clothing as an undergarment. But the experts are continuously coming up with new devices. Among the most recent: an invisible plastic sheet that mirrors an off -camera fire behind am actor so he appears to be enveloped in the flames; strobe lits to simulate the wing guns of strafing fighter planes; a rubber rattlesnake (convertible to a cobra) tint can strike and retract over an 18-inch arc; radio-controlled crash cars, and a spring attached to a harness that slams a gunshot victim against a wall . The effects men generally leave worries about the social impact of their work to others, but often they are disgusted by what they're asked to do. Not long ago A.D. Flowers of Twentieth Century-Fox had to rig a hose to pump three gallons of thick Mood out of a man shot down on a street. "I telt this was gettin' out of hand." he said. And Chiniqui wasn't sorry when Universal cut a scene in which he had chloroformed flies groggily crawling over the tace of Katharine Ross who was supposed to have been dead for two days. Af. exp,rCrt om "ie makers think that the shook effect and the boxoffice appeal of gruesomely detailed violence may have peaked. "Geysers of Uood is a thing that's cooling off very fast." says Fred Ponedel of Warner Brothers. Ternaps The Godfather is the blow that will break the camel's back. The women object to this kind of thing." Nwvsweefc Feature Ssrvica 432-1465 Er:"iiY fcVIYI X 13th P Street V Jr specul mm:a wmmi Y AT AT8PXL l SEE "HOT RUCKS" AT 6 OR 9:35. AND THE "PREVIEW" AT 8 P.M. fha West flia way it really tras! r MQV o "-- SSSSS II I III r I ' ' J iOHl ITT w . it:.-' 1 . PEACf CORPSVISTA anyone interested contact $ I CURK BEYER j Placement Office-Union I Hours: Wed. l:30-5;00p.m. j i TThurs. 1:00-5:00 p.m. Deity frem 1:2 pan. "RC&ERT REDFCRD SB3AL 20mCENTURY-f09(lwnl A Hal Walbs Pradurnon Va: Redgrave Jackson I nf4th0Stwet IV I TCZSSHT ii Tjte y j (Mnto'j MATINEES III V SATURDAY pi XJNDAY I "Of .Mi I " nNWSOM COLORBV'OEUJNE . ! dr I V TWILIGHT MICf 90c III Mm. f hrm Thmr. ili f ffsCZs lahiPStwe 11 1 1 Dmly from 2 pan. : xu ! i I 1 mi', i I ftr. .. ,Ti I A Hal Walhs Pradurtion Vwhb Ckads FRIDAY. APRIL 7. 1972 PAGE 7 THE DAILY ME8RASKAN
