It was 1977 and they were filming a low-budget biggie called Thunder and Lightening in Naples. It starred David Carradine and Kate Jackson. And the director wanted to blow up a Cadillac on the end of Gordon Drive. Gordon Drive, an area so rich and uptight even the gentle Gulf Breeze squeaks like rusty hinges on a coffin.
"You wanna what?" I asked him.
"Blow up, burn a Caddy. Right in the middle of the street," he reiterated.
"Don't think so," I said. "First, there's the danger, then the damage to the street, then the explosion noise, then the lynching party that will form shortly thereafter.
The director laughed. "No danger," he said, "very little noise, no damage to anything but the Caddy. Let me show you how we do it." And he did.
Charley Sanders, a Deputy with the CCSO, was rigging the car for the explosion. Charley had experience in such matters, having been a stunt driver, Nascar racer, and mechanical genius. He was also doing the stunt driving for the film.
Charley had disabled the hinges and placed hydraulic rams on the doors, hood, trunk, and bigger ones on the frame, shooting straight into the ground.
He also put a thing he called a cooker in between the front and rear seat, a round cylinder a little larger than a propane tank. Inside the open top's tray he put some sawdust and poured in a pint of gasoline. It would be fired electrically. I took Charley's word that most neighbors wouldn't even know the stunt had happened.
The Caddy was moved into position, the cameras rolled, and Charley threw a switch. The hydraulic rams shot into the doors, hood and trunk and they flew off the car. Simultaneously, the gas exploded inside the car sending a raging wall of fire out the holes were the doors had been. Then the two rams on the bottom of the car hit the road and the car jumped into the air. And there was no sound--it was added later--or damage except to the car. I later saw the scene in the movie and was amazed at the seeming destruction, knowing how they'd done it.
So, a few days later, when the director wanted permission to machine gun all the front windows out of a house they'd rented on Gordon Drive, and assured me no actual bullets would be fired, I said "Work out, Bubba. No problem."
I helped on that one...they shot part of it in the County and I had the terrible job of being Kate Jackson's security guard for a day. It was a "B" Stinker, but I had fun and they paid the same as my second job at the time-- digging house footers--no competition there.
ReplyDelete