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.