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The Force Awakens Blog has posted photographs of 50 weapons and helmets from Star Wars: The Force Awakens in stunning high-resolution. It would be fun to make some of these in anticipation of the movie’s release (though most theatre chains have banned replica guns from their screenings).

I wrote a review of The Theatrical Firearms Handbook for the latest issue of Theatre Design and Technology. It’s an invaluable book for everything gun-related in theatre and film. If you are ever involved with a firearm on stage, you should own this book.

The New York Times has restored designer’s names to reviews of shows in their paper. This is very good news to anyone who has been following this story. Meanwhile, props people consider it a victory to be listed in the back of the program next to the brand of carpeting used in the lobby.

Eyeballs Studio makes a pretty stunning Dwarven Axe using mostly closed-cell foam and PVC pipe. It is amazing what you can accomplish with such cheap and readily-available materials.

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The Saddest Man in Hollywood, 1940

The following article originally appeared in a 1940 issue of The New York Times.

More or Less According to Hoyle

by Thomas M. Pryor

The saddest man in Hollywood today is one Irving Sindler. The chances are you’ve never heard of him, for the gentleman so named is a property man by trade and, in motion pictures, these artists do not receive the same program recognition accorded them in the theatre. Though his name has never appeared in the screen credits, Mr. Sindler has become a Hollywood legend because he has managed to sneak his name into at least one scene of every film on which he has worked during the last fifteen years.

In “Wuthering Heights” there was a gravestone bearing the inscription, “I. Sindler, A Good Man.” In “Intermezzo” there was a Swedish bakery owned by “Sindler & Son,” and in “Raffles” a newspaper insert noted that “Lord Sindler had returned from a hunting expedition.” Sindler’s name decorated the front of a delicatessen store in “Dead End” and it appeared in Chinese across a banner in “Marco Polo”—or so we’ve been told. And preview scouts report seeing a sign labeled “Ma Sindler, Home Cooking” over a small cafe in “The Westerner,” which Samuel Goldwyn is holding for Fall release.

To his family and fellow-workers the Sindler trade-mark is as much sought for as is the ephemeral “Lubitsch touch.” But today Mr. Sindler is dejected, ashamed to face his family and friends because he failed to get his name into “The Long Voyage Home.” And it wasn’t that he didn’t try. He had a sign ready bearing the words, “Sindler & Son, Chemists,” but author Eugene O’Neill spoiled that by having most of the action take place on board a freighter. Sindler didn’t give up, however. He tacked the sign over the window of a Limehouse dive where Thomas Mitchell and John Wayne were scheduled to have a brawl, but Director John Ford spoiled that, too, by shooting away from the window.

And that is what has made Irving Sindler the saddest man in Hollywood.

Pryor, Thomas M. “More or Less According to Hoyle.” The New York Times 14 July 1940: 103.

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When Prop or Player Fails, Part 3, 1919

I’ve been posting some excerpts of prop mishaps from a 1919 New York Times article titled, “When Prop or Player Fails” (here and here). Since they were so entertaining, I thought I would post a final duet of tales from that article:

Franklyn Ardell’s talent for comedy turned a stage wait in “The Crowded Hour” the other night into the biggest laugh of the performance. The climax of the third act is reached when a bomb from an airplane strikes the house in which Jane Cowl, frantically operating a telephone switchboard, is trying to save a division threatened with destruction. At the time Miss Cowl is calling Soissons on the telephone, and the word is the cue for the bomb explosion and the collapse of the house. On this night, as she called “Soissons!” the bomb exploded, but the house failed to collapse. Miss Cowl waited an agonizing second, and then again called “Soissons!” Again a wait, and as she was about to call a third time the voice of Ardell could be clearly heard all over the house. “Never mind Soissons!” he whispered. “Call ’em up back stage and find out what in blazes is the matter.”…

A slip which was the fault of no one in particular took place some years ago at a performance of “Madame Sans-Gêne” in Scranton. The scene of the first act was a kitchen, or perhaps a laundry, and Kathryn Kidder, in the leading role, was lifting red hot irons from a presumably red hot stove. So hot was the stove, in fact, that Miss Kidder was applying a tentative finger to each iron as she lifted it, and indicating as she withdrew it that the stove was hot indeed. In the midst of the scene, however, the theatre cat chose to stroll out upon the stage, and, as luck would have it, elected to climb up on the supposedly hot stove. And there it calmly sat, licking its paws in lazy comfort. The audience gave way to uncontrolled merriment, and the entire act went for naught.

Originally published in The New York Times, January 12, 1919. “When Prop or Player Fails”, author unknown.

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When Prop or Player Fails part 2, 1919

Last week, I posted some excerpts of prop mishaps from a 1919 New York Times article titled, “When Prop or Player Fails.” They were so much fun, I thought I would share a few more from the same article:

One of the best of the missing prop stories is concerned with a performance of “Virginius” given many years ago by James O’Neill. In this play another character was required to bring to O’Neill an urn supposed to contain the ashes of his dead sweetheart, and on one occasion, as he was about to make his entrance, the actor could not find the urn. Hearing his cue spoken on the stage, he hurriedly snatched up a small water cooler, which stood on a table back stage. Although it had a spigot on one side, it was about the size and general shape of the urn, and could readily pass for it on the stage, which was dimly lighted. In the ensuing scene Mr. O’Neill put out his hand to touch the urn, as was his wont, and was unlucky enough to touch the spigot and turn it. He was kneeling in prayer at the moment, and the ice cold water began to run down his bare knee. He gave no sign that he was in discomfort, however, and the scene was played without interruption…

Richard Mansfield, in “Ivan the Terrible,” used a green hassock in the throne room scene, and during the run of the play at the New Amsterdam Theatre here the hassock became so worn that the star demanded that it be reupholstered. Mansfield’s Saturday program was “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and by sending the hassock to the upholsterer early Saturday morning the stage manager thought to get it back in plenty of time for the Monday night performance of “Ivan.” It failed to arrive, however, and in the emergency a small red hassock, of the sort provided by the theatre management for its juvenile patrons, was put in front of the throne instead. The entire stage setting was green, and this bit of bright red greeted the star as he made his entrance preparatory to mounting the throne. His reply to the stage manager was to lift the hassock neatly with his foot and send it spinning out into the audience…

At the Red Cross performances of “Out There” at the Century in the Spring there occurred on the opening night a stage wait which most of the audience sensed. Following the departure of ‘Erb to enlist, at the end of the first act, the mother and sister of Annie have one or two speeches before the curtain falls. The sister then bids her mother take a drink, and the curtain drops as she lifts the flask to her lips. This night, however, the curtain did not fall. Helen Ware, who was playing Princess Lizzie, looked uneasily off stage and then said: “Have another drink.” Beryl Mercer, playing mother, drank again. But still the curtain did not fall. “Have another drink,” said Miss Ware, equal to the emergency. Fortunately the curtain finally fell at this point, and Miss Mercer was saved from drinking herself to death in the interests of art. It developed later that Laurette Taylor, who had just left the stage, had stopped to chat with the youth who operated the curtain, and had so distracted his attention that he missed his cue.

Originally published in The New York Times, January 12, 1919. “When Prop or Player Fails”, author unknown.

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When Prop or Player Fails, 1919

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The following excerpt comes from a 1919 New York Times article titled, “When Prop or Player Fails.” The article describes mishaps on stage due to missing or malfunctioning props, a problem which has plagued actors since theatre began.

One of the most familiar and most absurd stories of histrionic presence of mind is concerned with an old-time melodrama which called for an actor to file his way through prison bars, only to be shot dead later as he stood on the wall of the prison, about to escape. The file had been brought carefully into the plot, so that the audience was fully aware that the prisoner had it in his possession. On the night in question, as he stood on the prison wall after sawing his way through the bars, the gun of the prison guard failed to go off when the trigger was pulled. The actor, however, fell from the wall as he was accustomed to, but instead of lying where he dropped, he staggered down to the footlights.

“My God!” he gasped, to the audience. “I’ve swallowed the file!” And dropped dead.

The gun which fails to go off is one of the most frequent causes of embarrassment to an actor. There is the long familiar story of the actor who pulled the trigger as usual one night, in a scene in which he was supposed to murder another character, only to be met by a click instead of the customary report. The other man, however, fell down as usual when the trigger was pulled, so the first player did what he could to save the situation. Looking from the revolver in his hand to the man prostrate on the floor, he remarked, “These Maxim silencers are certainly wonderful things,” and the play went on…

Arthur Byron of “Tea for Three” tells of a melodrama in which he was supposed to shoot E. J. Henley, only to find that the gun would not go off. He made several attempts, and then Henley whispered “Stab me! Stab me!” Byron, unfortunately, had nothing with which to stab him, so he brought about his demise by clubbing him over the head with the revolver.

Originally published in The New York Times, January 12, 1919. “When Prop or Player Fails”, author unknown.