so who does and how do they do the knife throwing in movies like "El Dorado" and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral? it sure looks real and would require a lot of confidence in everybody involved.

also how did they do the scene where John Wayne shoots the gun out of the bad guys hand in the saloon?

an inquiring mind would like to know

It's supposed to look real. I can't recall the scenes...would have to see it. A lot depended on what the knife was being thrown at or into. If it was being thrown at a surface like a wall or something, one way to do it was that the wall was constructed out of thin material, sometimes heavy paper. And the knife would actually pop out through the surface from behind.

If the knife was thrown into a person...most often the scene where it hits him...the camera was cranked in reverse...the knife already stuck in him...then ran at forward speed when the film was edited.

Back in silent film days, Charlie Chaplin was innovative in using reverse cranked film in his movies' scenes.

Keep in mind, normal film speed was 24 frames per second...so the knife's impact only took up about 2-3 seconds of screen time. Easy to fool a viewer's eye.

All this was long before computer enhanced effects, of course.

Several ways to do that. Invisible wires or fishing line yank it out of someone's hand. In some cases a tiny explosive (like a primer) was detonated...and the actor didn't have to pretend the pain and would let go the gun. But if the gun goes flying...chances are it was yanked out of his hand.
And some actors were good enough to flex their hands and mimic the effect of the gun being shot out of their hand. Again, I'd have to see the scene.

The bad guy with the gun in his hand has a squib (small explosive, maybe in this case just smoke) and a string on it. When John Wayne fires a blank at the guy they set off the squib to make it look like a bullet hit the gun and the guy with the string yanks the gun out of his hand.

These are so typical. People have a 'blood' capsule in their mouth and when somebody 'hits' them they bite down on the capsule and the 'blood' runs out of their mouth.

CGI has been carried very far and the novelty has worn off causing many to wish for the days of old time FX. One problem is that they could be very expensive with fabrication, manpower
and time to produce while a guy with a keyboard can whip out effects in no time.

The tornado in 'The Wizard of Oz' was contracted to be a special made rubber funnel that was very expensive and when they tried it, it looked terrible. So somebody sewed muslin material into a funnel, blew a fan in it and threw in some dust and got one of the scariest effects ever in a movie.

Maybe the Bronze Man in Jason and the Argonauts looks jumpy due to the stop action of a one foot tall figure, but in the movie he still looks terrifying to me, not to mention the skeleton soldiers. Sheeesh.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - The big squid's eye and chomping beak made me want to set away from the television set.

The naval battle in 'Ben Hur' was done with miniatures and it still looks great.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Running around the circumference of a space station in zero gravity.

The list is endless, I love this stuff.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Then again in some instances the fancy gun work is quite real. In the famous scene in the original Winchester 73 when Jimmy Stewart shoots the postage stamp it was actually shot by Herb Parsons standing offstage. He was one of the most prominent exhibition shooters of the day.

There have been books written on the movie special effects used back in the day. I remember reading one some years ago. One of the more renowned was the "Arrow splitting an arrow" in the original Robin Hood movie with Errol Flynn back in the late 1930s.

I saw a documentary one time that showed that before they thought of ways to 'stage' someone being shot at with a Tommy gun, the actors were in a window and ducked down while they actually sprayed a Tommy at the window.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I can see how the shooting of the gun out of a hand can be but I wouldn't be too crazy of having something going off in my hand to simulate the shot.

however it sure looks like a real knife being thrown and sticking in somebody in the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". Lee Van Cleef does live to star in other movies so the stunt was very well done

In the realm of elution let's not forget Ron Howard's movie Apollo 13. The weightless scenes were all filmed in NASA'S KC-135 vomit comet.

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"The Dude abides"

I don't think we will ever again see the "special effects" of the old Hollywood. CGI is so much better at simulating reality, and probably cheaper as well. Look at the recent hit movie "Gravity" with Sandra Bullock where virtually the entire movie was done with CGI. If you want to see how computer generated animation has advanced, go see the current movie "Jungle Book". The animation is truly unbelievable and so lifelike that it is hard to believe it is even animation. The only "real" photography in the entire film is the little boy who plays the lead role, everything else is done on computers.

But effects aside, techniques have improved so much that many older movies now make me groan with the obvious fakery of the action. Watch a "fight" between John Wayne and the bad guys in any old Western and it is so obviously staged and without real violence that it now looks silly, even if in the day it appeared real. Fights in today's movies look so real it is sometimes a real challenge to figure out how they achieved the image without really hurting or killing someone in the process.

The Ray Harryhausen fx, was all stop-motion, meaning every slight movement was done, then photographed and done again and again till something actually looked like it moved. I DETEST CGI. I do like Morphing though.

Stop Motion animation is great and I love the Ray Harryhausen fx. He was the one who did the skeletons etc. Its done by making ever so slight movement, phtographed and done again and again till it looked like it was movine. I also like morphing--such as the morphing you saw in Terminator 2 etc. I HATE CGI.

I saw a documentary one somethinbg like that. There wass an early Cagney gangster movie where the bullets that hit the wall just before he ducked--were the real deal. I dont remember what movie it was? but would have to watch my gangster sets over again to figger it out.

In: They Died With Their Boots On, during Custers last stand. You can see at least two troopers that have blocks of wood strapped to their back inside shirts of course. that was for the arrows. Either that or both actors were hunchbacks?

I suspect the arrow shooters were kept very happy and could have just about anything they wanted. some disgruntled arrow shooters could make life on the movie set very interesting

The film was 1931's The Public Enemy. It was the film that made Cagney a star for the rest of his life, even though he took twenty years off from making films. He was still a star when he returned.

And contrary to popular mythology and in spite of a whole bunch of impressionists doing it, Cagney never uttered the line, "You dirty rat!" in any of his films.

Also, unlike some phony movie tough guys like George Raft, Cagney was quite capable of giving someone a good butt whuppin'.

Mucho thanks, I have that movie too and think ill dig it out after I complete watching the Blacksheep squadron. Its been awhile since ive seen that classic though.

Re- gunfight at ok corral, i read or saw once that Douglas actually did practice with switchblades.

In the magnificent seven directors cut, james coburn mentioned that he & a stunt man came up with the underhand switchblade throw. When he picked up his script, the director handed him several switchblades. He mentioned setting up an old door in his living room & throwing at it.apparently almost nailed his wife 1time.

Wasnt there one of James deans films where they used real switchblades & chain mail vests under the shirts? Would never see anything like it today.

On a side note, you have to remember alot of the old actors were gun owners. in his biography Steve Mcqueen talks about fast draw competitions that alot of the western stars would have. He also had a impressive gun & knife collection himself.

Chuck connors would go out to the range with the rifle he used on The Rifleman set & actually practice shooting from the hip.



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In Rocky IV, Stallone wanted Lungren to really fight in a scene to add to the reality. In a couple seconds Lundgren hit Stallone over the heart. Stallone's heart beats became very irregular and was in ICU for 12 days before the cardiologist would release him to continue the film. Lundgren has been there and done that; Stallone hasn't really competed, especially at the level that Lundgren did.

I remember that scene also. Supposedly a WW1 machine-gunner was brought in to work that Thompson. They were, I believe, able to get that on film in one take.

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James L. "Jim" Rhiner

Like McQueen, Connors was the real deal. He was a genuine athlete with incredible hand-eye coordination. Played pro baseball for a while...played one game for the old Brooklyn Dodgers, then joined the Chicago Cubs as a first baseman for sixty-six games in 1951.

And don't forget Ed Ames showing Johnny Carson how to throw a tomahawk-pure classic:

https://youtu.be/0L5QC9ZJkM8

Sorry, can't figure out the stupid interwebs proper posting.