The nitrogen ram was now sitting about four feet off the ground and covered in black backing. Black backing is just black cloth—sometimes it’s called black limbo—which movie companies use all the time for black backgrounds. Or in this case, to hide something. The interior of the storefront was supposed to be dark—there would be reflections off the glass, but we wouldn’t see inside. The black limbo over the ram and its pedestal would kill any metal glints.
“What do you want to do first?” Chadney asked Franklin.
“It’s your back,” Franklin said. “Take your pick.”
“Then I’ll do it first, and we’ll do the dummy second.”
“Fine,” Franklin said.
From this I gathered that the stunt would be done twice—once with Chadney being yanked and once with a dummy. I looked over and saw, sure enough, a six-foot dummy being dressed in an identical wardrobe to Chadney.
There was no glass in the window now. Chadney said he wanted a dry run to test the throw. He cleared everybody out and tied a bale of hay with a two-hundred-pound weight in it to the end of the cable.
Everybody stood around while the special-effects man fired the switch. The bale of hay was yanked off the ground and flew through the window at frightening speed. One minute it was lying on the ground, and the next minute it was gone with awhishof air. It was scary to imagine a man being yanked like that.
Chadney watched it all professionally. “I think it’s fine,” he said. “We can get started.”
Two things happened now: Chadney and three other stuntmen fitted him with the brace. The brace was an ugly contraption that looked something like a regular back brace for a bad back. It wrapped all around him and was heavily padded. Chadney also wore pads on his knees and elbows. Then Chadney put on his shirt and vest, over the brace, and the wardrobe man cut a slit in the back of the shirt and the cable was fitted onto the brace through the shirt.
Meanwhile, the special-effects crew were gingerly carrying the candy glass to the window. They treated it as delicately as if it were nitroglycerin. It was, in a way. The slightest bump would shatter it, and that stuff is expensive. A small pane of candy glass—let’s say three feet by four feet—costs a couple of hundred dollars, and this was an enormous piece.
You know, of course, that nobody in a movie breaks real glass. That’s too dangerous. Special candy glass is fitted instead. Candy glass has the consistency of peanut brittle—it snaps easily. They call it candy glass or sugar glass because in the old days it was made of some kind of sugar. Nowadays it’s plastic, but they still call it candy glass.
Anyway, the cable was fitted through the glass and Chadney took his position. I was paying attention to Chadney. He looked nervous, but he couldn’t move around much, because he was attached to the cable and the slightest jostle might break the glass behind him.
Then I saw Mann pop up. He glowered at me but didn’t come over. Mann went to stand with Greenblatt and Robinson.
The tension among the crew was incredible. We were all focused on Chadney. And with good reason. Everybody on that crew, including me, knew a stuntman who had died or been crippled or had a very close call. It happened all the time.
“Ready on cameras?” Claude said.
“A camera ready,” came a voice.
“B camera.”
“C camera.”
The camera crews all signaled that they were ready.
Claude said, “Al?”
“Okay,” Chadney said, with a slight smile.
“Tim?”
Tim was the special-effects man. He had to fire the blood hit on Chadney’s chest, and also the nitrogen ram. “Ready,” Tim said.
Claude turned to the director. “We’re ready.”
“Okay,” Franklin said.
At that moment, Harlow Perkins, dressed in a beige cashmere blazer, appeared from inside the storefront. “Just a minute, just a minute!” he said loudly. “Hold everything!”
* * *
To say that the mood was broken would be the understatement of the century. Everyone on the set just stared at him. Chadney turned around and gaped. Perkins, looking his usual elegant self and totally out of place on the Western street, walked right past Chadney and up to Franklin.
“I must advise you,” Perkins said loudly, “that for insurance purposes you have to perform this stunt first with the dummy.”
