Nearly 10 years ago, the Motor Press Guild held a dinner at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. There, masters of movie chase scenes and stunt drivers Hal Needham, Jack Gill and Corey Eubanks held a panel discussion on their craft. Film critic Charles Champlin also took part, as did moderator Tim Considine, the former child actor who played the eldest offspring in "My Three Sons." Today, he is a writer, photographer and automotive historian.
The event holds significance now since there remains a handful of teenage drivers who look upon their state-approved driver education program as the equivalent of "Driver’s Ed 101." What they see in the movies and on television is "Driver’s Ed 201," the advanced course.
Chase scenes in the movies can be exciting. Corey Eubanks admitted that watching "The Dukes of Hazard" on television prompted him to get into the field of stunt driving. He wound up working in 87 episodes of the show, thanks in part to his father Bob, a popular game show host.
As exciting as they might be, there is a major problem with chase scenes. They suggest that just about anybody can drive a car at high rates of speed, practice precision placement, advanced skid control, and come through the experience unscathed (and usually unticketed).
In reality, chase scenes are costly and time consuming endeavors that rely on science, highly skilled drivers, hours of rehearsals, years of practice and take place either on closed streets or in Hollywood back lots. Even then, drivers are occasionally injured, even killed, in their pursuit of entertaining the masses.
So, for teenagers – and adults – who think that they can easily equal the feats they see on the big screen, or that doing so is worth a try, here are some items to ponder.
•Hollywood auto stunts are time-consuming process. While they may last two or three minutes, they can take days to film. Needham, who brought us such gems as “Smokey and the Bandit,” "Hooper" and "The Cannonball Run," says one chase sequence and final scene in Hooper took about a week to film.
•Much of that time is spent in careful planning. Chases are choreographed with the precision of a ballet, though patrons of the arts might object to the comparison. They are not the result of an instant flash of inspiration followed by the call for "action" by the director.
•Mistakes happen. In one case, a simple bootlegger turn failed and the car flipped over. Doing that to the family car creates a major problem. In Hollywood, it’s simply the cost of doing business and if one car is destroyed, another can likely easily take its place.
•Sometimes, drivers are badly hurt. Needham recounted when filming the John Wayne movie "McQ," he broke his back, six ribs, punctured a lung and knocked out two teeth in a vehicle rollover. He spent months recuperating after nearly being killed. When he recovered, he went back to work. Most of us would have started looking for a safer occupation instead. Bomb disposal comes to mind.
•Actors who seem to be driving often are not. In "Ronin," Robert De Niro appeared to be in the driver’s seat, but he wasn’t. The car, from Great Britain, had right hand drive. The producers then installed a fake instrument cluster and steering wheel on the left side so the actor could appear to be driving. Some scenes required dozens of stunt drivers.
•It's difficult to believe, but some spectacular stunts are done on the hard drive, as in computer simulation. Increasingly when you see something spectacular, you should not ask "How did they do that?" You should wonder if they did it at all.
The upshot for younger and older drivers is this: The movies do not deliver Driver’s Ed 201. They are fantasies, pure and simple. To think otherwise could lead to disaster.
