Jan 14, 2007, 1:15 PM
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"The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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Wow, I just caught a behind-the-scenes thing on AMC about this old movie. I think it was in the 60's. It was incredible. They showed the jumpers who did all the stunt work for it. They showed their first camera helmet, it was huge! And they were even experimenting with wingsuits! They put wooden dowels in the wings, but then they were getting impaled by them on landing, ouch! They were all using the para commanders and landing with hard PLFs.
It was really neat to see that stuff and see how far the sport has come.
Jan 14, 2007, 1:59 PM
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Re: [IanHarrop] "The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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Had to be the "Making of..." available on the Gypy Moths DVD. It was Deborah Kerr. The book "Birdmen, Batmen, annd Skyflyers" has a chapter on Garth Taggart, who did the "cape" jump in the movie.
Jan 15, 2007, 5:35 PM
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Re: [Jeth] "The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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If I remember this movie it was from the southwest but not Elsinore. They had a student doing solo jumps from a Stinson.There was also a Twin Beech that was used for night jumps only.A few people bounced.In town ther was a jumper bar without any posters. No bar stools with broken legs repaired with broken pool cues duct taped on to repar them Knew right then it was a fake. Even the ceiling tiles looked like they never got torn down by a desperate effort of a collapsing five stack pyramid. No one puking in a bucket trying to pass "Cardinal Puff".Not at all like normal jump bars of the day
Jan 15, 2007, 6:33 PM
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Re: [lekstrom10k] "The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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Well, we have (at last) two different movies here. One is "The Gypsy Moths," about three barnstorming jumpers traveling around the midwest and jumping out of a Howard. The "cape" (batwing) jump is the big thing in this movie. Carl Boenish was the lead freeefall camera guy. There is a "making of..." extra on the DVD. Watch the first and last 15 minutes of this 107-minute long movie -- the rest is a bore.
The other is "Skydivers," from a Coleman Francis trilogy called "Mystery Science Theater 3000," and intended as a satire on bad movies. Part of the blurb on the VCR box... "... when the two meet, CRASH! Skydiver squishy. Our hero, Harry, owns a skydiving facility, He's messin' around with Suzie, who's totally hooked on him, but her young lover, Frankie, who used to be Harry's plane mechanic, is ticked. If that's not confusing enough, when Harry decides to romance with Beth, his wife, who's contemplating a move on Harry's best bud, Joe, Suzie and Frankie devise a plan to knock off Harry. Whew; The skydiving scenes are a crack up, When one of the dudes face is flapping around, Mike remarks, "Gosh! Glad he's not skydiving naked!" In another, one diver lights up a smoke stick, and Tom Servo can't resist saying, 'Sorry, I had Mexican for lunch." And, let's not forget Crow's classic, "Ah, roger tower, Which way is the sky?" A classic from the Coleman Francis troika.""
If that seems funny, run out and buy it.
(VCR box cover attached. The balloon speeches at the bottom are comments from the space aliens who are mocking the movie..)
Jan 15, 2007, 8:10 PM
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Re: [lekstrom10k] "The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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If I remember this movie it was from the southwest but not Elsinore.
It was filmed at the old Quartz Hill airport near Palmdale/Lancaster. I know because over 30 years later I lived there only about 500 ft from the location. I recognized the street I used to walk my daughter to school on. Yep, good ol' Quartz Hill. They built over the airport in the very late 80's or early 90's. Oh, I'm talking about the MST3K Skydivers movie....
Bob
(This post was edited by skylord on Jan 15, 2007, 8:14 PM)
Jan 17, 2007, 5:40 AM
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Re: [howardwhite] "The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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Well, we have (at last) two different movies here. One is "The Gypsy Moths," about three barnstorming jumpers traveling around the midwest and jumping out of a Howard. The "cape" (batwing) jump is the big thing in this movie. Carl Boenish was the lead freeefall camera guy. There is a "making of..." extra on the DVD. Watch the first and last 15 minutes of this 107-minute long movie -- the rest is a bore.
HW
"a bore"?? haha, my favorite line is "if it rains, we don't jump".
I'm guessing that movie was shot in 35mm film, but Carl used to bring some big camera rigs out to play with that were pretty awesome in terms of size and weight. He had a couple of motorcycle type helmets setup, each with a 16mm movie camera and also a motordriven 35mm still Nikon. Talk about neck breakers...
Jan 17, 2007, 7:04 AM
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Re: [fastphil] "The Skydivers" movie from the 60's
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The motor -driven Nikon-F that only weighed 14 pounds complete camera, motor drive, and battery pack. There was a motorixed OlympusOM-1 that had a detachable pistol grip switch and battery pack . You could put it in your jump suit and run wires down the sleeve for a switch. It could come with a winder at two frames a second but the motor drive was five to six.I still have an N-6 gun sight Corsair "BaaBaa Black Sheep " 16 mm movie camera set up. You wore a pistol belt with "D" batteries soldered in series to make the 24 volts . with a coat hanger sight readt to go.. You could show the movies next week-end if all went well and you found a 16mm projector.. Not like today were you can view it walking back from landing and mysteriously erases if you screwed up.
(This post was edited by lekstrom10k on Jan 17, 2007, 7:06 AM)
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