It takes a lot to film, to cinemate, ANYTHING in the outdoors with b/w technology and this is quite an effort. I think the film should be shown nightly at the Ahwahnee, or Yos. lodge, along with the old color short featuring the YMS guys (its title escapes me) on Reeds Direct. It's not funny that memory no longer serves. It's why there's film: aside from the dicactic qualities of informing and entertaining, it aids memories. One is fortunate to see such an old flick, ten years older than myself. I liked the climbing, as it is just so effin' thirties. Me pard from Box Canyon, Chatsworth, and his family control land there. It is hard by the old "movie ranch" (Manson family country) and overlooks the SFV, the old reservoir. I have recognized many "locations" on the ranch in old westerns filmed there, having hiked by them to get to a shortie in the sandstone. I had some of the best times there with my pard when I was exiled to Oxnard, kicked in the stones by my fed-up climbing/fishing/golf widow-wife. I know, guys: Oxnard? Merced? What did he do to deserve that? My life would make a neat film, a didactic film, one that seeks to help the noobs avoid the pitfalls of avoiding contact with someone who cares about you, but there's a third person on the rope of the marriage, the siren who seeks to bring your soul on the rocks! I have a screenplay, who's got the camera? "Didaction!"
holy moly, is that ever a blast from the past. we need to pick this one apart.
harwood lodge at the outset--still looking that way, still available for a cheap weekend in the mountains--all you have to do is join the sierra club.
the first hijinks at san antonio falls, with some 4th classing up the falls canyon. but then they're on a big crag with big views--can't think of anywhere in the san gabriels like that. tahquitz? sierra?
familiar-looking faces from past sierra club slide shows, but i can't tell you who they are. they deserve credit. will try to link this to some who might know.
there's a movie of about the same vintage of skiing on mt. baldy, involving the sierra club ski hut up there. nice strike here, toadgas.
standard practice then, btw, court echelle, the "short ladder" of standing on your partner's shoulders. pretty fast dulfersitz, but people will endure great pain to get into the movies. heck of a base jump--wonder if it was spliced from other footages. nice pendulum on that single piton too--didn't seem to go in very hard.
hey there say, toadgas... thanks for the really neat old share here...
i will try to get it--can't really get youtube (dial up)...
but after all the neat comments etc, (as i know) there is
really nothing quite like these old time black and white films,
:)
i've copied the link to what few sierra club geezers we have left--will try to get some credits and locations. i've heard a lot of old names, and rice, johnson and pete smith don't ring any bells.
btw, the los angeles RCS depression era climbers commune was legendary--guys and dolls pooling their resources and living as chastely as possible, climbing every weekend. the inevitable romances led to enduring marriages--john and ruth mendenhall, chuck and ellen wilts.
harwood lodge is a delightful place, though haven't been there for a long time.
one thing about the climbing shots--they had to have convenient camera angles, given the technology of the time and the probable budget for this little short.
I've actually seen 3 on a Rope before. Totally classic! Such an awesome film with great footage. Lots of footage from Taquitz and, yes, a clip or two filmed at Stoney Point as well. I'd forgotten about the base jump at the end. I think there is a former ST thread about this film but I can never find it.
I tried to get this film to link to another thread a while back and it seemed like all the online copies were protected or blocked somehow, so it's great to see it again.
Edit to add: Tony- I agree- bring back the shorts. It would be fun to do a mini- parody of this film. I'll bring the shorts and the 30's pincurls. You bring the piton, the cara-biner and the scratchy rope. I'm sure we can find a clueless noob to play the third around here somewhere.
William Rice is the man Rice Minaret is named after. Anybody know about the other named climbers? Or the name of the woman?
Fun stuff.
g
EDIT: Rice, Johnson and Smith are all referred to in Vol 26 of the Sierra Club Bulletin, Pages 115 and 116. Might be in reference to this movie. Anybody know if the SCB is online?
Sweet climbing footage! Very educational. I learned how loose rocks are actually your friend and much better than putting a foot on the slippery granite.
For the BASE: I'm thinking catapult with a dummy. But great effect!
Pretty ballsy heads up stuff. I love the "belay" technique with the belayer merely standing on a ledge, not attached to the rock in any way. Talk about "the leader must not fall", eh?
Hard to believe this film was made in 1938. Good to see the running belay with the piton, and even a lead fall.
Clever funny narration, and not too much staged for the Hollywood effect. I think Tom Evans should show this movie at the bridge when people ask him how they climb El Cap.
That was no dummy at the end doing the jump. Watch the body position and especially the arms. I wasn't liking how close the canopy was to the wall before they faded out.
Funny how they poked fun at the German guy, with whom we would be at war the next year. Well some of us would, some of you others would wait another couple years.
Just looked again. That whole final scene with the girl and Herman is filmed at Stoney. (The director lived in Encino so it's not surprising). Looks like he just jumped off one of the short ledges up there onto a pad(?) and then they spliced the base jump in - probably filmed elsewhere. Really does look like a real person doing the jump to me.
i usta have a friend in box canyon too, mouse. we had fun on the big cliff behind his place up there. same dude? i'll never forget jamming a crack and almost putting my fist into a nestful of prairie falcon chicks. mama kept her polite distance, we backed off the route and climbed another crack, the babies lived into adulthood and no one had to shut the place down.
this fellow survived the manson family--got shot at once for getting too close to their property, and he also survived the "box canyon weenie roast" of about 1986 or so.
who is that blonde? a great screamer--predating the wilhelm scream by 13 years.
FA: Jim Smith, Bob Britton, Author Johnson, William Rice -- September 1936
This vid is even cooler now that we can look at it and see three of the pioneers of our sport having fun making a cornball short movie that was played at thousands of movie theaters back in the late 1930's!
edit: The Fingertip Traverse at Tahquitz was my first lead and first multi pitch route back in 1971.
You need a bare minimum of 225-250+ft.* from the time ya toss yer PC to allow the canopy to open. So think about it, and the force that would be required and what it would exact on the human body? Particularly in the style and hapinstance way it was done in the above vid...anything could have gonewrong. For one, there was no gurantee he could reach 200+ft.! What if he made it to only 120ft.? He would have been toast, even if he would have survived the initial shock of the catapult. Very sketchy at best. My analysis is it was staged.
I just looked at it again and that looks pretty authentic, but...?
Crazy MoFo...
edit: *That was a while back, I think the current record indoors is 130 ft. so maybe equipment/chutes have evolved so the can open faster?
Ya, I think it's fake also(for the reasons listed above). It was most likely carefully cut with him standing with what looked like one foot on the catapult/board and the next instant of the crane dropping the block. Like I said, no one could withstand that amount of force on their spine, neck, knees or body in general. And there is no gurantee the would reach an appropriate height even if they did survive the initial shock. But it is cool to watch...
God, does that take me back. I learned climbing in the late 1960's. Twisted rope, pitons, you tied the rope around your waist. Not very high tech compared to today. I don't think that guy really parachuted off that rock. I think they used a small doll with a handkerchief.
Later in life Pete Smith the producer of this film had a bit of a fall himself. In 1979 at the age of 86 he bailed out the 9th floor of his hospital room.
The other bird, the Tony Bird. How's things with the chicks?
It's all coming back...the vegetable patch, the trailer, the goats.
And that straight-up-the-rock gash.
Jim's living over in Simi Valley now. I'll be housesitting for them in June if you wanna visit. Message me, please.
We don't need to think @ base-jumping, but how about some beer-sumping?
I just scoped out the Harold Lloyd clip. Thanks for the tip. At first the music had me awning. Then the rope management reminded me of my least favorite realizations: we all come to the end of our rope sooner or later. It's too bad about old Pete.
Which reminds, um, me...Is there any truth to the old rumor that Bill Dolt used a Chouinard rope to "solve his problems?" If so, was it the Fantasia pattern or the lime-green?
The movie stars Bob Brinton (the comic relief), LaVere Daniels, Bill Rice, Jim Smith, Howard Koster, and Art Johnson, all members of the RCS of the Southern California Chapter of the Sierra Club.
My sister and I (daughters of Bob Brinton) just discovered this movie online. Our dad had never mentioned it!
It's true that they did have to sue to get the money they had been promised, according to the records of the Sierra Club.
We're trying to put together a web page about Bob Brinton's climbs, so if anyone has information about them, we'd be most grateful!
laurel.brinton@gmail.com
a few oldtimers in the SCMA might remember bob (i certainly remember talk of him), or know of others linking to the past. we even used to have an historian in that group:
Full credits for the climbers
Art Johnson, Jim Smith, Bill Rice, Bob Brinton, LaVere Daniels, Howard Koster
Brinton, Daniels, and Koster are the second team (Brinton, my Dad, as the comic relief as Herman from the Bronx). Although the climbers were promised compensation, this was not forthcoming.
Let us know!