Does anyone know how the locust scene was filmed? It wouldn't be too hard with today's computer aided filming technology but it must have been a challenge in the 1930s.
sharei had the same observation. i was quite impressed with the locust scenes, especially the close-ups and medium shots of all those grasshoppers. 70+ years later and we are still impressed. a sure sign of a great movie.
"just what the truth is, i can't say anymore..."
Guess we all saw this movie today, and all had the same thoughts about the locust scene. According to the trivia section here on IMDb:
Special effects experts were unable to produce an authentic looking locust plague. Just as they were about to abandon the scene, they received word that a real locust plague was taking place several states away. A camera crew was rushed to the scene to capture it on film.So they were actual locusts! I thought it looked too real to be special effects!
I read in Paul Muni's biography that they brought back barrels of the locusts to Hollywood. Those are the real locusts that you see on the actors' backs. The shots of locusts in the air were made from shooting burnt cork out of cannons. It's an amazing scene. Cinematographer Karl Freund won a much deserved Oscar for his work.
shareI found much of the casting somewhat ridiculous, and the acting often needlessly comical, with the characters crafted to conform to American’s inaccurate beliefs about Asian personality traits. Which was already too greatly influenced by Buck’s provincial missionary’s daughter view of China and the Chinese people. Worse still, the movie comes off as a kind of distorted Reader’s Digest version of Buck’s original story.
However there is a great deal of excellent cinematography and art direction throughout the film itself. Preeminent in this regard is the locust siege and the villagers’ effort to defend the crop field.
Though Muni, Rainier and the other lead characters here can be painful to watch, most of the time, the locust scene is surely one of the most beautiful and awe inspiring bits of film produced by Hollywood.
“Your thinking is untidy, like most so-called thinking today.” (Murder, My Sweet)
I realize this is an old thread, but some may still be interested. At the end of the film on TCM, Robert Osborne talks about this and says special effects used were bits of cork, real locusts, and even coffee grounds set against a backdrop, then the background was shaken to make it look as though the "locusts" were moving. They then received word of the actual locust swarm in Utah, as others have mentioned, and incorporated that as well. Fabulous scene!