HOW THE INCREDIBLE HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS PULLED OF MOVIE STUNTS IN 1920S
In order to achieve ambitious stunts, the majority of film companies now either completely or partially rely on computer-generated imagery and green screens. Naturally, technology hasn't always been sufficiently developed to create such captivating illusions, but early 20th-century movies nonetheless managed to have amazing special effects. It's said that a magician should never divulge their tricks, yet Lost in Time's most recent YouTube video does precisely that. The film documents the spectacular acts of daring that were produced on the screen by Hollywood icons such as Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin in the 1920s.
The video offers a behind-the-scenes look at how each movie stunt was accomplished by contrasting genuine footage of the stunt with 3D animations, paying tribute to technical inventiveness. In the opening sequence of Lost in Time, Buster Keaton falls into a briefcase that is dangling from a man's neck in Sherlock Jr. (1924). Keaton is nowhere to be seen after the man leaves his position against a wooden wall, still holding his briefcase to his chest. The optical trick is still perplexing because the solution is so creative: the man was hanging onto two handles below him while resting his feet on a support that was concealed behind the wall, leaving only his head visible.
Additionally, a trap door was carved out of the wall, allowing Keaton to appear to leap through the briefcase. There is a scene in Harold Lloyd's 1923 movie Safety Last! where the actor climbs the Bolton Building in Los Angeles and, to avoid falling, swings dangerously on the hand of a huge clock that is fixed to the structure. Cars, people, pavement, and—most concerning of all—dozens of feet of empty air are all visible beneath him. Indeed, Lloyd was suspended over the streets of Los Angeles, but from the security of a rooftop. To keep a realistic angle, the film crew created a whole set of a building facade and a camera tower there.
Lloyd would have fallen straight into a mattress, not much below him, if something had gone wrong.
The actor's character, Charlie Chaplin, is hired as a night watchman in a department store in the video, which is centred on Modern Times. He locates a pair of roller skates and, trying to win over the girl he brought along, skates around while wearing a blindfold, oblivious to the sheer ledge and broken rail next to him. Instead of a lethal drop, this scene uses a "matte painting," a method that gives the impression of a setting that isn't actually there at the shooting site.
Zooming out would reveal a glass plate in front of the camera, on which the crew had painted the floor. "It's still hard to comprehend what these legends pulled off a century ago, even with all the technology we have now," says Lost in Time's conclusion. They had little in the way of visual effects. All the stunts were authentic. Every danger was genuine. Perhaps that explains why we still hold our breath when watching them a century later.