MovieChat Forums > The Temptress (1926) Discussion > images of the St Francis Dam in the Temp...

images of the St Francis Dam in the Temptress?


I Tivoed the film "The Temptress" when it appeared on Turner classic movies in January. About 40 minutes into the film, there is a scene showing the building of a dam in the Argentine. Interspliced with scenes shot for the movie are shots of an auctual dam which I believe was the infamous St Frances Dam under construction in San Francisquito canyon near Newhall California, north of Los Angeles. This dam was constructed between 1924 & 1926, and failed in March 1928, leaving a death toll of nearly 500 people. It was the 2nd worst disaster in California history, after the San Francisco earthquake. Since the Temptress was filmed during the dams construction and released in 1926, and its close location to Hollywood, I think that the brief scene in the movie about 30 seconds or so, is the dam. If anyone has a copy of the movie compare with pictures of the St Francis Dam in the Santa Clarita History web site at http://www.scvhisto ry.com/scvhistory/st francis.htm The surrounding mountains as well as the structure with its stepped front match up in my view. If it is true the the collapse of the dam later in the film due to explosives (those scenes were clearly staged and don't even resemble the actual footage of the dam under construction earlier in the film) and the resulting flood and destruction was an eerie precurser to the real dams failure (of poor enginnering and faulty Geology).
Since the above was posted, it has been confirmed that some of the scenes showing a dam being built was on scene archival footage of the St Francis dam under construction. A little bit of history preserved in a silent film.

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That's a pretty interesting bit of trivia. That disaster was an exercise in overconfidence.

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Good to know!


"Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright & fire is clean." -Captain Beatty

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Thanks for posting - very interesting information. So the movie was eerily prophetic.

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Thank you for that bit of info. It was obvious the movie borrowed footage of an actual dam under construction, but I (and others I'm sure) wondered where and when.

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

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Thanks for this piece of information. I knew it was a real dam, but thought the Hoover dam would've been built later as Herbert Hoover had just become president at the time, plus it didn't look as big as Hoover dam. I had never heard of the St. Francis Dam, but it's an interesting bit of trivia that I was certainly curious about whilst watching this film.

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I recognized it instantly, paused the film, and came here to see what the message board had to say about it. Thanks for starting this thread. I used to live in the area and have a nice chunk of the dam here in my home in Atlanta. What an amazing, little-known story.

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