Tweet Vehicular Disasters in Silent Film

Can anybody name any cases of vehicular disasters in any silent film? This is what I'm talking about: in the Buster Keaton short The Scarecrow, Buster's rival for the attentions of Sybil Seely is hit by a truck (forgot what he was doing in the middle of the road to begin with), and the truck driver (played by Edward F. Cline) stops, looks out the window, dismisses the whole thing and promptly drives off. My sadistic sense of humor found that to be the funniest sequence in the entire short - though most certainly not as ingenious as the house Buster and that guy was living in.
Plus, as a bonus, the dog chasing Buster was played by Luke the dog!
Well, anyway, (to irritatingly reiterate what I already said) that's what I'm looking for - vehicular disasters in silent film.

Martie

Harold Lloyd in his Keystone days as the fruit peddler who goes into acrobatic gyrations as his cart is repeatedly smashed and destroyed by criminals and police alike, in LOVE, LOOT & CRASH (1915).

Harold Lloyd in his Keystone days as the fruit peddler who goes into acrobatic gyrations as his cart is repeatedly smashed and destroyed by criminals and police alike, in LOVE, LOOT & CRASH (1915).

Damn, that sounds hilarious! I gotta track that 'un down sometime soon!

Martie

[silentfilm]

Edgar Kennedy, Clara Guiol, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel in Two Tars (1928)

Edgar Kennedy, Clara Guiol, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel in Two Tars (1928)

Thanks, Bruce! Another one for the list!
*scribbles on notebook*

Martie

THE RACKET (1928) has George E. Stone performing a hit-and-run. THE GREAT GATSBY (1926), although lost, has a hit-and-run figure prominently into its plot, of course.

I think we might as well just list any vehicular disaster in silent film, rather than just hit-&-run disasters.

Martie

Not a comedy, but Cecil B. DeMille's 'Manslaughter' (1922) has one such incident as its central plot point.

How 'bout an almost-silent? For the Defense, 1930--Kay Francis croaks a pedestrian who got in her way. (Being run over by Kay Francis; that would be something.)

Here's something peculiar: that fabulous white British roadster Garbo wraps around a tree in Woman of Affairs survived its injuries, because it shows up again driven by Diana Wynyard in One More River. How'd it get from MGM to Universal?

[Christopher Jacobs]

A major traumatic sequence in THE CROWD involves a traffic accident. (immediately following which, Tchichovsky's "Pathetique" makes for appropriate musical accompaniment.)

For a relatively brief series, Max Davidson experienced a high number of vehicular mishaps in his Hal Roach comedies. JEWISH PRUDENCE centers around a lawsuit involving a bus accident. Max tends to have a lot of bad luck with cars (mostly Model Ts) and in two other shorts an accident in a roadster transports him from rumble seat to beneath the engine's hood. In CALL OF THE CUCKOO his parked Ford is demolished by a careening piano. Poor Max! A great comedian, get the Filmmuseum DVD set!

One of the earliest British trick films (I can't find the title) concerns an auto. A car drives into the picture and stops, and after a moment suddenly explodes. Pieces of machinery and body parts fall from the top of the frame and a policeman walks over and begins in a laconic manner to make an inventory in his notebook.

One of the earliest British trick films (EXTRAORDINARY CAB ACCIDENT, 1903) concerns an auto. A car drives into the picture and stops, and after a moment suddenly explodes. Pieces of machinery and body parts fall from the top of the frame and a policeman walks over and begins in a laconic manner to make an inventory in his notebook.

I have a copy of that short, though I believe my copy is titled AN AUTOMOBILE EXPLOSION. It's nice to see a Pythonesque sight gag near the start of filmdom, as well as the patented British art of Understatement at it's best...well done.

It would almost be easier to make a list of comedies that DON'T have vehicular accidents... Harold Lloyd's Hot Water has quite a series, as do most of his features. Buster Keaton crashes trains, boats, balloons, and automobiles in his films (does having a car sink count as a car or boat accident?), and memorably has an old car that disintegrates on a road bump in The Three Ages. And we can add The Artist as a recent addition to the canon, though I think they faked the crashed car (them vintage automobiles ain't cheap).

As for the hit and run from The Scarecrow (the irony there is that Big Joe Roberts, the victim, is crossing the street to bring Buster some dog bite medicine while Buster is being chased by Luke, who is thought to be rabid because of the meringue pie he ate; but Roberts ends up needing the first aid supplies himself) there's a nice version of that in Wings where the doughboy victim, not badly hurt, decides to fake it when he realizes that Clara Bow was at the wheel. He gets some nice female sympathy for his pains.

In one of my film books (Parade's Gone By?) the author shows a still of Harold Lloyd with his car crushed by a train. He points out that it's a different car than the one in the actual film, showing that Lloyd destroyed one car for the film, then (for some reason) destroyed a second car for the publicity still.

One of the more impressive train incidents is at the end of Beggars of Life, where a flaming caboose plunges into a canyon. The whole sequence impresses me every time.

It would almost be easier to make a list of comedies that DON'T have vehicular accidents... Harold Lloyd's Hot Water has quite a series, as do most of his features. Buster Keaton crashes trains, boats, balloons, and automobiles in his films (does having a car sink count as a car or boat accident?), and memorably has an old car that disintegrates on a road bump in The Three Ages. And we can add The Artist as a recent addition to the canon, though I think they faked the crashed car (them vintage automobiles ain't cheap).

As for the hit and run from The Scarecrow (the irony there is that Big Joe Roberts, the victim, is crossing the street to bring Buster some dog bite medicine while Buster is being chased by Luke, who is thought to be rabid because of the meringue pie he ate; but Roberts ends up needing the first aid supplies himself) there's a nice version of that in Wings where the doughboy victim, not badly hurt, decides to fake it when he realizes that Clara Bow was at the wheel. He gets some nice female sympathy for his pains.

In one of my film books (Parade's Gone By?) the author shows a still of Harold Lloyd with his car crushed by a train. He points out that it's a different car than the one in the actual film, showing that Lloyd destroyed one car for the film, then (for some reason) destroyed a second car for the publicity still.

One of the more impressive train incidents is at the end of Beggars of Life, where a flaming caboose plunges into a canyon. The whole sequence impresses me every time.

Yes - in For Heaven's Sake Harold Lloyd's recently purchased limousine is stalled on some train tracks and demolished. Earlier another of his cars is destroyed in an accident.

Buster Keaton's little roadster is also hit by a train, similar to the gag in One Week, in his talkie Parlor, Bedroom and Bath.

There's the Laurel and Hardy short in which the boys and their car are crunched by the streetcar.

It would almost be easier to make a list of comedies that DON'T have vehicular accidents...

After his debut film MAKING A LIVING (which features a spectacular car wreck), Charlie Chaplin's films almost NEVER indulge in another vehicular accident for his next 75 or so movies...that is, until his final silent film, MODERN TIMES (the overturned paddy wagon from which he and Paulette make their escape).

Coincidental -- or what?

[silentfilm]

There's the Laurel and Hardy short in which the boys and their car are crunched by the streetcar.

That would be Hog Wild (1930).

How 'bout an almost-silent? For the Defense, 1930--Kay Francis croaks a pedestrian who got in her way.

Kay Francis can run over me anytime

One of the earliest British trick films (I can't find the title) concerns an auto. A car drives into the picture and stops, and after a moment suddenly explodes. Pieces of machinery and body parts fall from the top of the frame and a policeman walks over and begins in a laconic manner to make an inventory in his notebook.

Damn! Sounds pretty hardcore.

Martie

If this wasn't the silent section, I'd mention the car/streetcar wreck that kicks off The Nuisance.

If this wasn't the silent section, I'd mention the car/streetcar wreck that kicks off The Nuisance.

Ah, but you did mention it.

Martie

If this wasn't the silent section, I'd mention the car/streetcar wreck that kicks off The Nuisance.

Ah, but you did mention it.

Martie

Ssssssh!

Ssssssh!

Yes, please keep quiet about it--it's disconcerting, this time of night, to be reminded of that drop-dead gorgeous hunk o' pfirmly-packed pulchritude called Madge Evans.

I believe Buster was quoted as saying that the audience didn't like seeing a brand new car destroyed, that he had to use one that was a little beat up beforehand.

I believe Buster was quoted as saying that the audience didn't like seeing a brand new car destroyed, that he had to use one that was a little beat up beforehand.

I think that was in reference to The Blacksmith, where a very nice car is destroyed, and it didn't go over well with audiences. He explained that as a reason why they didn't sink or explode the ship in The Navigator. Also, probably, worth too much as scrap to ruin a huge ship for a movie....

I believe Buster was quoted as saying that the audience didn't like seeing a brand new car destroyed, that he had to use one that was a little beat up beforehand.

I think that was in reference to The Blacksmith, where a very nice car is destroyed, and it didn't go over well with audiences. He explained that as a reason why they didn't sink or explode the ship in The Navigator. Also, probably, worth too much as scrap to ruin a huge ship for a movie....

Guess he changed his mind about that when he wrecked the Texas in THE GENERAL. Tho' the Texas did end up making some nice scrap iron when WW2 rolled around from what I've heard.

The wrecked car in THE BLACKSMITH didn't bother me as much as black hand prints on that pristine, gorgeous white horse. Now that was a wreck!

Guess he changed his mind about that when he wrecked the Texas in THE GENERAL. Tho' the Texas did end up making some nice scrap iron when WW2 rolled around from what I've heard.

Lord, hope you don't mean the original Civil War Texas, & not some stand-in locomotive.

Guess he changed his mind about that when he wrecked the Texas in THE GENERAL. Tho' the Texas did end up making some nice scrap iron when WW2 rolled around from what I've heard.

Lord, hope you don't mean the original Civil War Texas, & not some stand-in locomotive.

Some stand in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjH75LOuybo

The Blacksmith turned into a horror movie for me - the way that beautiful, luxurious, showroom-ready looking car was smashed in so many unlikely ways. The rest of the short I was perfectly okay with, but that car... damn, just damn!
I didn't realize a Keaton short could impact me so emotionally.

Martie