Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/93

Popular Science Monthly

NE of the most spectacular feats ever shown on the films was recently recorded when a horse and its rider dived eighty-three feet from the top of a cliff into a pool of water. This performance was invented by a director who wished to inject realism into the film version of "Carmen." The results in the picture were highly satisfactory, but the results to the actor were unfortunate.

The plot of the story demanded that Carmen's lover should commit suicide by diving with his horse from a high cliff. One of the most daring of the actors was selected for the feat. After a long search a suitable spot for the act was found in the Adirondack Mountains. The cliff chosen towered eighty-three feet above a pool of water, the bottom of which was studded with sharp rocks.

The actor, when all was ready for the filming, with a battery of camera men waiting on the opposite bank, drove his horse to the edge of the precipice and urged the frightened, trembling animal over the brink. The horse was wiser than the actor, however, for he could not be driven to make the plunge. At last another steed was chosen, this time, a trained diving horse.

Even the horse trained to the work refused at the last minute to make a clean dive, and while it hesitated on the edge the daring driver spurred him over. The fall was not a clean one, and the horse somersaulted twice during the long drop.

The catapulting drop made it impossible for the actor to throw himself away from the horse, and the two struck together on their backs and disappeared from sight.