MovieChat Forums > Alec Baldwin Discussion > From the beginning of movies to the 1970...

From the beginning of movies to the 1970s, thousands of Westerns were made, with millions of shots fired

posted 3 years ago by whynotwriteme (7129)
83 replies | jump to latest

Directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks and especially Sam Peckinpah had real guns on their sets. They fired so many shots you could never count them. Peckinpah used more ammunition in The Wild Bunch than was used in the actual Mexican Revolution, And nobody died for real.

Sure, there were Jon Erik Hexum and Brandon Lee' s deaths in the 80s and 90s, but those films were not Westerns. The people who worked on Westerns back then had a feel for the West and an understanding of guns. They did not hire little pink-haired, nose-pierced, tattooed 25 year old girls as Weapons Advisers. They did not star flaming Liberal actors, either, for the most part.

I guess it's just going along with the trend. People in the past did not need warning labels on their hot coffee or telling them not to eat detergent or drink car battery acid, either.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

May I ask you much research you've done into how many gun accidents there were on Western movie sets, during the Studio Era of Hollywood? Because I doubt that's a question that can be answered with a quick google search, given how good the film studios were at hushing up bad things that happened on film sets. A lot of stuff has come out over the years, by people who're interested in who was sleeping with whom and what drugs were given out by the studio doctors, but has anyone ever done any serious digging into safety issues on Western movie sets?

Sure, Gary Cooper was never put on trial for accidentally shooting anyone and neither was anyone else of note, but do we actually know that nobody was ever killed or injured by stray bullets? Because in those days, stunt men who got injured generally got a payoff and a warning, the entertainment press didn't want to anger the studios by running stories about negligence, and nobody in the LA area gave a rat's ass about the cowboys and roughnecks who did stunts in Western films.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Nice

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

It's my understanding that the cowboys and stunt riders who did background work on Western film were pretty much at the bottom of the Hollywood professional and social hierarchy. Yes, Hollywood needed their skills with horses, cattle, and guns, but they were working in a low-budget, low-esteem genre, and were looked down on for their country ways and lack of education. There was no OSHA, unemployment insurance, or Workers Comp in those days, if an extra was injured then they didn't work until they were well enough, if they made a legal complaint against a studio they'd never work again, and if they died because of studio negligence then who knows if any records were even kept... but we *do* know that the film studios were superb at hushing things up.

Hollywood didn't have any sort of safety standards for film sets at all until 1929, when three extras were killed during a spectacular flood sequence for a version of "Noah's Ark". And then safety standards were largely left up to the studios themselves, and these were the people who thought it was perfectly safe to give amphetamines to teenaged actors like Judy Garland. So anyone who thinks that everything was great in the Good Old Days... knows nothing about the old days.

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

Well, seeing as there are no records of any gun-related deaths on a Hollywood set until Jon Erik Hexum, I guess the burden of proof to find an earlier one is on you skeptics.

There are plenty of stories about people dying doing other kinds of movie stunts; falls, explosions, car or horse-related, etc. If your theory is correct, I wonder why they would specifically hush gun deaths up, but release full info on movie set deaths from all other causes?

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

It's very hard to prove anything didn't happen during the studio era, when the studios were so good at hushing everything up. Information from the studio era is incomplete, the human memories are gone, the official records are likely to be incomplete, and the press had a hands-off policy.

Which means that an expert historian could spend a lifetime researching the question and still not come up with a definitive answer, so I'm not going to try because I have another job, and that anyone who categorically states that everything was great back then is an idiot.

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

Just saying that there are countless recorded instances of Hollywood deaths from that era in falls, horse or car accidents, explosives, etc, but apparently the only death attributed to guns on a movie set prior to J. E. Hexum's occurred in 1915. So why would they be so hush hush ONLY about gun deaths???

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Did you seriously just ask why the studios would be more hush hush over gun deaths vs car accidents and falls?

Come on lol.

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

You're just as dead if you break your neck from a fall as you are if a blank shot sends skull fragments into your brain.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Yes...no one is suggesting that all deaths are not equally fatal, but nevertheless thank you for pointing that out to the class.

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

You guys are all wearing your tin-foil hats. "Hurr-durr, the Hollywood elite hides all the countless deaths from blank guns, because, like, the Conservative gun lobby, maaaannnnn."

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

Where exactly did you get all this detailed information about types of deaths in Hollywood movies? Google?

[–] Valerian (10482) 3 years ago

The long, tragic history of prop gun accidents on movie and TV sets: A timeline

https://latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-prop-gun-accidents-in-movies-tv

[–] degray9 (1126) 3 years ago

So the only example of a guy being accidentally killed by a prop gun before the 90s was in 1915? I’d say that’s a pretty good track record.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

The days of being able to blame all mistakes or crimes that happen to be committed by some minority group that the Right-wing doesn't like on all the members of that minority group to vilify them and further marginalize them are ending. They really should be over.

Someone with pink hair, or
someone with a pierced nose, or
someone with tattoos ( much as I dislike them ), or
even girls
can be as capable of being "weapons advisors" as anyone else with the experience and skill, and the as yet unsubstantiated fact that this particular person might have screwed up fatally, and this unhappy awful tragedy should not be an occasion where some Right-wing-nut gets to howl about every right-wing meme he's ever heard on Fox or from Limbaugh.

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

Fine, Brux. You go ahead and feel free to trust your life around firearms to a little girl who looks like a living anime cartoon. I'll just play it safe with the R. Lee Ermey type advisors.

And BTW, using the little pink-haired girl who worked on Rust as an example of "anyone can be a firearms advisor with the right experience and skills" is a very bad choice. She had little to no experience, she doubted her own abilities, and had fucked up already on another set.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Read the post I just posted for the movie Rust ... then re-evalute your BS view of the world.

https://moviechat.org/tt11001074/Rust/6177d46cab7b1e02d69abc5e/Hold-on-to-your-hat-have-your-world-rocked-Rust-realities-are-POLITICAL

As Feldman says, the day that set became a non-union set is the day they put that girl in charge and someone died. This is all about money laundering and tax dodges.

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

So because Baldwin is a greedy con man, he's automatically a conservative? I don't think so. There's plenty of precedent for money-grubbing and cheating among the Left. BLM Communist leadership in multi-million dollar homes, for example. Crooks come in all political persuasions.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

And because Trump is a greedier con man, he automatically is a conservative. Yeah.

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

Was a girl in charge?

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

The armorer for "Rust" was a young woman on her second job, and she doesn't seem to have done things right. I don't know how much of the problems were issues with her competence, or issues with a management structure that refused to enforce safety protocols.

I suspect the hard part of an armorer's job isn't keeping track of which guns are loaded with what, it's telling people that no, they can't shoot a couple of practice rounds with the antique Colt 45, and making it stick even when the management doesn't back you up.

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

Not done things right, how?

Was she present when some of the crew members were target practicing?

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

I've heard that on other sets, guns are locked up so nobody can access them but the armorer, are checked and re-checked before being allowed onto the set.
Safety meetings are held every morning that the guns are in use, no actor is allowed to point a gun at anyone except after checks and rechecks, and blanks aren't used until there are transparent shields in front of the camera crew. I've even heard that some armorers are so determined to keep things 100% safe that they put the guns into a case that's handcuffed to their wrist, and lock the real guns in the case when no shooting is going on!

Which if true is probably a bit overdramatic, but by all accounts, reasonable and expected safety standards were not observed on the set of "Rust", and that leaves every person and every company involved in a very bad legal position. Nobody's saying who was using the prop guns for target practice with live ammo but somebody was, when the guns were due due to be used they weren't checked for live ammo and were left on a cart, the gun was passed to the actor without safety checks, etc. Just a negligent clusterfuck chain of mistakes.

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

So Baldwin and the assistant director can be blamed?

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

Among others. Many, many others, starting with the inexperienced armorer and going all the way up the ladder of producers.

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

What was the armorer supposed to have done?

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

Someone else answer. I'm not going to write it all out again.

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

on the set in question?

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

Hasn't she been around guns her whole life, due to her father working with guns?

[–] whynotwriteme (7129) 3 years ago

It's documented that she lacked confidence in her abilities and had previous problems on her earlier jobs in this field. Skills are not necessarily hereditary. My father worked in construction his whole life and I can barely hammer a nail without banging my thumb.

[–] JohnnyDoe (1722) 3 years ago

Documented that she lacked confidence in what abilities and what previous problems?

Skills? Knowledge/experience with guns.

[–] Kowalski (58959) 3 years ago

YOU MADE SOME GOOD POINTS...I WAS WITH YOU...THEN YOU ADDED " They did not hire little pink-haired, nose-pierced, tattooed 25 year old girls as Weapons Advisers. They did not star flaming Liberal actors, either, for the most part."...SO,NOW YOUR VALID,WELL SAID POST IS BIASED GARBAGE.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Shame when that happens lol

[–] TheArgentinian (6461) 3 years ago

You undermine any point you were trying to make with your right wing rant. Guess what, it was also OK to abuse animals on movie sets until the American Humane association intervened.

[–] Destinata (2625) 3 years ago

I don’t suppose you know that “No animals were harmed in the making of this film” only means that no animals were INTENTIONALLY harmed. And they give them a pretty wide leeway on that. People who were as naive as you and lent their horses to movie makers, only to have to euthanize them when they got them back (lawsuits ensued) learned the hard way what a friend of mine in the business told me — “Don’t ever let a production company use a horse of yours.”

The exposé surrounding the making of “War Horse” wasn’t widely reprinted, but was utterly stomach-turning. The American Humane Association can be bought off. It’s about as useless as PETA, which kills puppies and kittens, and actively fights against no-kill shelters.

[–] snepts (11123) 3 years ago

Sez you

[–] Destinata (2625) 3 years ago

Thank you, whynotwriteme. That was the most sensible take on this I’ve seen, yet.

[–] Keelai (32005) 3 years ago

It doesn't have to do with politics. It has to do with a very cheap studio not willing to pay for qualified people and rushing production.

Western actors Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Kirk Douglas were Democrats.

Political Parties were different in that era. For instance, there were liberal Republicans. Now, the extremists Gingrich/McConnell obstructionists and Trumpism dominate the Republican Party while Progressives are damaging the Democratic Party. Extremism in both parties is not good.

Re: warning labels - Look how many millions have become radicalized from Facebook and now believe the Earth is flat, believe in secret lizard people or who ended up in the hospital from injecting disinfectant. People have become stupid and those warning labels are needed. Welcome to the Idiocracy!