17 Jaw-Dropping Facts About Classic Film Production
Over the years, and especially back in the day, Hollywood has put the cast and crew of movies in some truly wild and dangerous situations. Here are some infamous examples of the extremes people have gone to just to get the right shot:
As a minor, Judy Garland was forced to work 72-hour shifts, and given both amphetamines and sleeping pills in order to control her energy levels for such a gruelling schedule.
The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz was originally played by Buddy Ebsen, who got aluminium poisoning from the pure aluminium makeup and was hospitalized.
Jack Haley replaced him and is the Tin Man we see in the movie — aluminium paste was used for his makeup, which gave him an eye infection.
Meanwhile, Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, had significant burns from the smoke and fire effects in the film, and her stunt double, Betty Danko, was so badly injured when the asbestos-coated "broomstick" she was riding exploded that she had to have a hysterectomy.
The Wizard of Oz also used asbestos as fake snow, and it was far from the only movie to do so — it was a common prop in iconic movies like Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life.
It's a Wonderful Life was actually shot during summer, and production had to shut down at one point so the cast and crew could recover from heat exhaustion.
Tippi Hedren spent five days having live birds thrown at her and finally tied to her costume to film the climactic attack scene in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
In her memoir, she described the experience as "brutal and ugly and relentless".
Both Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn permanently injured their spines in two separate incidents while filming difficult stunts for The Exorcist.
Malcolm McDowell described filming A Clockwork Orange as "torture" — he cracked several ribs during a violent scene, and also went temporarily blind when his corneas were scratched during the filming of the infamous eye clamping scene.
The fight scene between Sonny Corleone and Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather got too real when actor Gianni Russo broke two ribs and cracked his elbow.
In a fight scene, Bruce Lee kicked his Enter the Dragon co-star Robert Wall so hard that one of the extras behind him who tried to catch Wall actually broke his arm.
For Grease, the dance scene was shot in a gym with no windows, leading several cast and crew to suffer from heatstroke.
Sylvester Stallone ended up in intensive care for eight days while filming Rocky IV because he wanted the fight scenes to feel "real," leading to him receiving such a hard blow to his chest that his heart was injured.
Burt Reynolds insisted on doing a stunt that involved jumping into a waterfall himself for Deliverance, which led to him falling unconscious and cracking his tailbone.
Bo Derek was attacked by a lion while filming Tarzan, the Ape Man, slicing open her shoulder.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually chased by German Shepherds for the wolf scene in Conan the Barbarian, and was injured when one caught up to him.
Michael J. Fox actually passed out and could have died while filming the hanging scene in Back to the Future Part III.
And finally, for Police Story, Jackie Chan performed a stunt where he slid down a multi-story pole, tearing through strings of lights, and smashing into a glass pane below. Chan did it in one take, and ended up with second-degree burns on his hands.
Which of these facts shocked you the most? Do you have your own stories about Old Hollywood to share? Drop them in the comments!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Buzz Feed
10 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
17 Jaw-Dropping Facts About Classic Film Production
Over the years, and especially back in the day, Hollywood has put the cast and crew of movies in some truly wild and dangerous situations. Here are some infamous examples of the extremes people have gone to just to get the right shot: As a minor, Judy Garland was forced to work 72-hour shifts, and given both amphetamines and sleeping pills in order to control her energy levels for such a gruelling schedule. The Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz was originally played by Buddy Ebsen, who got aluminium poisoning from the pure aluminium makeup and was hospitalized. Jack Haley replaced him and is the Tin Man we see in the movie — aluminium paste was used for his makeup, which gave him an eye infection. Meanwhile, Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, had significant burns from the smoke and fire effects in the film, and her stunt double, Betty Danko, was so badly injured when the asbestos-coated "broomstick" she was riding exploded that she had to have a hysterectomy. The Wizard of Oz also used asbestos as fake snow, and it was far from the only movie to do so — it was a common prop in iconic movies like Citizen Kane and It's a Wonderful Life. It's a Wonderful Life was actually shot during summer, and production had to shut down at one point so the cast and crew could recover from heat exhaustion. Tippi Hedren spent five days having live birds thrown at her and finally tied to her costume to film the climactic attack scene in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. In her memoir, she described the experience as "brutal and ugly and relentless". Both Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn permanently injured their spines in two separate incidents while filming difficult stunts for The Exorcist. Malcolm McDowell described filming A Clockwork Orange as "torture" — he cracked several ribs during a violent scene, and also went temporarily blind when his corneas were scratched during the filming of the infamous eye clamping scene. The fight scene between Sonny Corleone and Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather got too real when actor Gianni Russo broke two ribs and cracked his elbow. In a fight scene, Bruce Lee kicked his Enter the Dragon co-star Robert Wall so hard that one of the extras behind him who tried to catch Wall actually broke his arm. For Grease, the dance scene was shot in a gym with no windows, leading several cast and crew to suffer from heatstroke. Sylvester Stallone ended up in intensive care for eight days while filming Rocky IV because he wanted the fight scenes to feel "real," leading to him receiving such a hard blow to his chest that his heart was injured. Burt Reynolds insisted on doing a stunt that involved jumping into a waterfall himself for Deliverance, which led to him falling unconscious and cracking his tailbone. Bo Derek was attacked by a lion while filming Tarzan, the Ape Man, slicing open her shoulder. Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually chased by German Shepherds for the wolf scene in Conan the Barbarian, and was injured when one caught up to him. Michael J. Fox actually passed out and could have died while filming the hanging scene in Back to the Future Part III. And finally, for Police Story, Jackie Chan performed a stunt where he slid down a multi-story pole, tearing through strings of lights, and smashing into a glass pane below. Chan did it in one take, and ended up with second-degree burns on his hands. Which of these facts shocked you the most? Do you have your own stories about Old Hollywood to share? Drop them in the comments!
Indianapolis Star
15 hours ago
- Indianapolis Star
Pascal Siakam explains 'demonic' viral moment: 'I have this problem where I can't really close my eyes'
OKLAHOMA CITY – One of Pascal Siakam's agents once told him after a game a camera had caught him during the National Anthem looking like his eyes had rolled up into his head. His eyes were open but his pupils weren't visible — just the sclera or the white part of the eye — so he looked like something out of "The Exorcist" or some other movie about demonic possession. The irony was Siakam had actually been caught in the act of praying. He comes from a devout Catholic family in Cameroon and his father sent him to seminary school in hopes that he would become a priest. Though he graduated, Siakam opted against that life, but still remains religious. He prays multiple times before every game with his eyes closed — well, mostly closed. "I have this problem where I can't really close my eyes," Siakam said Saturday in an off-day media availability at the Paycom Center before Game 7 of the NBA Finals. "Sometimes I'll be thinking I'm closing my eyes, but they are not really closed. Even sometimes having conversations, sometimes I look up and it feels like I'm thinking, and my eyes just go up." And that's what happened Thursday night, he said, when television cameras caught him in a pre-game huddle with his teammates in the hallway outside the Pacers' locker room at Gainbridge Fieldhouse just before Game 6. He had his head bowed but then raised it up and when he did, his pupils were under his eyelids but enough of the whites of his eyes were still visible. This of course, made the rounds on social media with various jokes about Siakam being a demon, accessing some kind of dark magic or that he'd entered the Ancestral Plane from the "Black Panther" movie franchise. Siakam didn't find out about until after the game. He said in a video on Instagram teammate Myles Turner had showed him pictures and videos. Siakam had 16 points and 13 rebounds in the Pacers' 108-91 win but he joked that he wished he'd scored 30 because he could say the spirits took him over. "I'm glad people are enjoying it and having fun with it," Siakam said. "Literally I was praying and trying to close my eyes and I was thinking in my head my eyes were closed, but clearly they weren't closed. That's just all it is, really." Siakam has tried to be cognizant about keeping his eyes as closed as he can, and sometimes even covering his face with his hands. But in the NBA Finals with cameras everywhere, that's not easy to do. "I've got to do better," Siakam said. "I've got to start doing this (covering eyes with hands) or I can put my head down and y'all can't look at me no more. And the NBA with all these cameras, it's too much, man. Get the cameras away from us."
Buzz Feed
2 days ago
- Buzz Feed
14 Movie Scenes That Traumatized Their Actors
Janet Leigh explained that after filming the notorious shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, she couldn't take showers for a long, long time. In a 1996 interview with The New York Times, Leigh shared how she was so afraid of taking a shower after filming the stabbing scene in the 1960 classic Psycho, she resorted to quite extreme measures to avoid her terrifying experience and trauma from the set. She stated, "I make sure the doors and windows of the house are locked, and I leave the bathroom door open and the shower curtain open. I'm always facing the door, watching, no matter where the shower head is.' Tippi Hedren, the lead of the 1960s classic The Birds, was actually attacked by real birds while filming, which left her terrified and utterly exhausted. Tippi Hedren was originally told that there'd be mechanical birds "attacking" her on the set of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, but was told shortly thereafter that they didn't work and would have to resort to using real birds trained to attack. This left Hedren distraught as, for five straight days during filming, she was bitten, attacked, and had live birds thrown and strapped to her. After one of the birds nearly pecked her eye out, Hedren simply broke down out of pure exhaustion on set. She had to take a week to recover in the aftermath of everything. When recalling the traumatic event, Hedren shared "I was never frightened, I was just overwhelmed and in some form of shock, and I just kept saying to myself over and over again, 'I won't let him [Hitchcock], break me. I won't let him break me.' Florence Pugh went through on and off-screen trauma while filming Ari Aster's Midsommar. The main star of the film, Florence Pugh, came out to say during the Off Menu podcast how she'd end up putting herself in "really s*** situations that other actors maybe don't need to" in order to stem from her character's on-screen trauma. She went on to explain how "I was putting things in my head that were just getting worse and more bleak. I think by the end, I had probably – most definitely – abused my own self in order to get that performance." Jack Reynor, who starred opposite Pugh, in Midsommar also suffered some trauma and mental health impacts from the filming, especially the famous bear scene. Jack Reynor, who played opposite Pugh, shared how he struggled with his mental health all throughout the shoot, and well after. He was particularly traumatized from the final bear scene, in which he told Collider, "It's dark and it's unsettling to watch all these people around you basically making it look like they're going to kill you in a horrific way. There's nothing you can do and you're paralysed, you know? It was heavy." And last but not least, supporting star of the film, Will Poulter, suffered psychological impacts and full-on nightmares from being in Midsommar. Supporting star, Will Poulter, also confirmed the horrific psychological impacts the film had on him by sharing how he'd have "Terrible, terrible, full-on nightmares" in a interview with Empire. He further explained how the film Midsommar itself was just "utterly disturbing. And it's that kind of disturbing feeling that I think lingers longer than a fright. A fright has a very limited lifespan. This idea that humans are capable of what you see in Midsommar is kind of what's most disturbing about it ... Despite reading the script and despite being in it and shooting it, and presumably knowing what to expect, I was still caught massively off guard." Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, explained the on and off-screen trauma himself and lead Marilyn Burns faced during the film, especially the dinner table scene. In an interview with Esquire, Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, came out to say how the dinner scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is permanently "burned" into his memory because of "...the misery of it. At that point, we were really just on the verge of mental collapse. And Marilyn told me about how awful it was for her because she was terrified... just being tied to a chair and then having these men looming over her constantly, she said it was really unnerving. I think that whole scene was certainly the most intense part of the movie, and I think all of us were slightly insane by then." In addition, many cast members of the classic horror The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were traumatized from filming and from the horrific conditions of the set. According to various cast members, the set of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was extremely gross and hostile, often smelling so bad it'd cause the actors to get sick due to the stench of dead animal parts. Some of the cast members weren't even allowed to change out of their dirty clothes or bathe for five weeks in order to maintain continuity, Marilyn Burns, who plays Sally, had spoken out about the conditions and explained how she was injured on set with her finger being cut and often scared she'd acquire a worse injury, especially from the chainsaws. Isabelle Adjani, star of the horror fantasy Possession, tried to kill herself after seeing the intense final cut of the film. In a 2000s documentary following his career, the director of the film, Andrzej Żuławski, spoke out about how his lead, Isabelle Adjani, attempted to commit suicide upon seeing the final cut of the film. He shared that "I think I was responsible for that. I was the one to blame. If somebody plays in my film and then is going through something like that, that means I didn't notice something." In regards to her experience, Adjani said to Interview magazine, "I remember – if you'll allow me to offer a comparison from my own career and some situations with [the director] Andrzej Żuławski – there was something of great violence that I agreed to take on. But I've realised over the years that it's something I could never accept again, and it's part of everything that my subconscious has been swallowing and incubating." Alex Wolff, one of the leads of the film, developed PTSD after filming Ari Aster's Hereditary. After speaking to Vice, Alex Wolff claimed that he'd suffered a type of PTSD after being in the emotional, psychological horror film Hereditary, directed by Ari Aster. Aster is known for leaving his actors emotionally damaged and scared, with Wolff explaining how "It's hard to describe eloquently. It's just a feeling. I don't think you can go through something like this and not have some sort of PTSD afterwards. When I started talking about it, all these flashes with all this disturbing s*** I went through sorta came back in a flood. It kept me up at night to where I got into a habit of emotional masochism at that point of just trying to take in every negative feeling I could draw from." The set of The Blair Witch Project was terrifying and horrified many of its actors in the duration of filming. The Blair Witch Project follows a group of teenagers roaming around the dark, spooky woods in search of clues to a mysterious town's local murderer, but were some of the scary moments caught on camera real? It was discovered that some of the producers of the film would unsuspectedly follow the camera crew around stepping on twigs and throwing rocks in order to create real-life fear and tension from the actors. However, while filming the tent scene, the tent began to shake uncontrollably without being touched, leaving many of the actors and crew seriously spooked from the event. James McAvoy claimed that he'd experience terrible nightmares of Pennywise the Clown after filming It Chapter Two. At an event with PA in San Diego, James McAvoy recalled a chilling dream due to the horrifying nature of Bill Skarsgård' performance of Pennywise in the film, It Chapter Two. He shared how, "The only one I can really remember is, I'm lying on my side in the bed and he was in bed with me. And he's stroking my back gently and saying, 'Wake up, James, wake up.' And I was just terrified, pretending to be asleep. I just thought, I've got to pretend to be asleep, I've got to pretend to be asleep. I had lots of nightmares about Pennywise, but that's the one specific one I can remember." Coincidentally, Bill Skarsgård, who played Pennywise the Clown, also suffered bad dreams from both It films. Bill Skarsgård recalled the scary dreams on Pennywise he had as a result of filming both It and It Chapter Two, sharing that "Those dreams were so strange. Either I was confronting Pennywise and I was upset with him, yelling at him — or I was Pennywise, but I was walking around in the streets that I grew up on, and I'm like, 'No, no. I shouldn't be out here in public walking around like this. This is not how it's supposed to be done." He went on to explain how "It was this weird thing where I was trying to separate myself from this thing," comparing his performance to his most recent as Orlook in Robert Egger's Nosferatu and how he'd had more ease in that role. JoBeth Williams was scared half to death while filming the infamous pool scene in The Poltergeist. During filming the pool scene where Williams is surrounded by skeletons, she was utterly unaware of the fact that they were real at the time she was in the water with them. Upon finding out, Williams was completely freaked out, stating, "I think everybody got real creeped out by the idea of that." However, she explained that it wasn't so much that the skeletons were real, she was worried initially that the materials of the fake ones posed an electrical danger to herself while in the water. Yet, writer Steven Spielberg, to ease her worries, actually jumped into the pool with her, saying, "Now if a light falls in, we'll both fry." And finally, Shelley Duvall was pushed to her breaking point while filming Stanley Kubrick's, The Shining, and suffered immense health issues following. During filming, Kubrick created extremely rough, hostile conditions that left Duvall having to reshoot one particular scene 127 times, which caused her immense dehydration and for clumps of her hair to fall out for the amount of crying she was expected to do during the scene. In The Complete Kubrick, a 2000s book of the director himself, Duvall shared "From May until October, I was really in and out of ill health because the stress of the role was so great. Stanley pushed me and prodded me further than I've ever been pushed before. It's the most difficult role I've ever had to play." Know any more crazy, horrifying scenes that left actors traumatized from filming, share them in the comments below!
