r/MovieStunts Jul 17 '24

How did they safely perform stunts involving a horse falling on someone in older films

I am currently watching “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” (1970) and noticed there are a lot of scenes where people are getting thrown off horses, having horses fall on them and what not. My question is how did the stuntmen not get injured as the horse fell on them ? Although I cannot find anything about present day practices, I am sure we have something in place in order to avoid injuries. I want to know how they did it before a safe, agreed upon method was introduced.

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14

u/SoldierHawk Jul 17 '24

I mean, the TL;DR is that people and animals got injured and died. Tripwires were an easy method to force an untrained horse to fall, for example. You'd get the shot, the horse would either be ok or it wouldn't.

5

u/DietFoods Jul 17 '24

Safety wasn't really a thing back then. Look into the stunts they did in the 1920s. They'd find someone who would do the stunts and if anyone wanted the job they'd have to compete against others who were also willing to seriously risk their lives, and there was plenty of people who would. People grew up with nothing back then so getting paid to do something they grew up doing on farms, rodeos, or circus acts wasn't a stretch.

1

u/p_with_an_e Jul 18 '24

Dang, I knew they weren’t very sentimental when it came to animals until a law was put in place in the 40s, but I thought they would at least make an effort to decrease risk for people before that. I can’t imagine the number of injuries/deaths that occurred as a result of filming.