Bert & other Win. Collectors
How many guns do you think were ruined while making movie westerns especially in the 50's & 60's?
The reason I am asking is last night I was watching an old black and white western from the 50's. The actors were involved in the mandatory gunfight which was taking place on a rocky hillside.
When a man was shot he would throw himself across a rock while dropping or throwing his model 94 on the rocks for effect. I cringed everytime a rifle banged and clanged over the rocks. Then I began to wonder how many guns were destroyed doing this.
I know that now days most movie guns are props but these old movie actors were useing real guns with blanks.
The reason I am asking is last night I was watching an old black and white western from the 50's. The actors were involved in the mandatory gunfight which was taking place on a rocky hillside.
When a man was shot he would throw himself across a rock while dropping or throwing his model 94 on the rocks for effect. I cringed everytime a rifle banged and clanged over the rocks. Then I began to wonder how many guns were destroyed doing this.
I know that now days most movie guns are props but these old movie actors were useing real guns with blanks.
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SOME but not all of course of those guns you see being thrown against things are actually rubber guns & they add the fake sound in. Most guns were supplied to the movie industry by Stembridge-here is a neat little article with pics about them. http://www.originalprop.com/public_html/stembridge/gunsmag.pdf
As to how many real ones were damaged I bet at least a few thousand--just look how many Dodge Chargers were demolished and rebuilt and demolished and then rebuilt for Dukes of Hazzard. Stembridge would have to do the same.0 -
I do not believe that very many actual (real) Winchesters were destroyed making the movies. Most of them were prop guns even back in those days. An acquaintance of mine is a retired Prop & Special effects guy... he worked in Hollywood for the better part of 40-years building props and setting up the special effects for many movies. 0 -
Well, there is a pretty good story about "horse fall" riders in the thirties when they probably didn't use rubber guns.
It is in a book by Ralph Moody, the author of "Little Britches" and other 'self reliance - growing up to be a man' stories. The title is "Shaking the Nickel Bush". Moody was one such rider.
A horse fall was staged by having a trip wire welded to the horse shoe. There would be either a cowboy or Indian galloping full speed, and then get shot from behind. We all saw these in the olden days. Many riders were maimed or worse, and there had to be many horses killed. That much violence had to be tough on the rifles too.0 -
quote:When a man was shot he would throw himself across a rock while dropping or throwing his model 94 on the rocks for effect.
Incidentally, it was not the '94, but the Winchester '92 that was the favored lever action in Hollywood, for much the same reason that the 1873 was so popular in the old west: It chambered the same blanks as the Colt Single Action Army.[;)]0 -
Interesting subject. Back in the late 1940s and/or early 1950s teams of scroungers were traveling around in Minnesota (my home state) looking to buy "old guns" for Hollywood. I remember that a person came to our property looking to buy guns, and he was interested in my grandfather's Winchester Model-73 (a .44-40 rifle). But grandpa didn't want to part with his '73 because he still was using it to shoot blackbirds off of an old frying pan, suspended on a washline between his little house and the outhouse. Grandpa would put a piece of bread in the frying pan, then sit with the '73 over his lap as he smoked a cigar. He had the door wide open and he just waited. When we came to see him we had to approach the hunting zone real easy and then call to him so that he knew we were coming. That is the only "blackbird stand" that I have knowledge of (similar to a deer stand). Ha. Anyway, yes, Hollywood and/or it's agents did troll the byways back then, looking for old guns. 0
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