We live in an era when movie studios would have you believe that all the big stunts you see on screen were achieved practically on set. No CG! No VFX! It was all real!
It’s nonsense, but I’m not going to argue the point here. However, I do want to illuminate it, by transporting you back to 1940, when filmmakers really did do things for real.
For the Republic Pictures western “The Dark Command,” starring John Wayne, legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt devised a spectacular stunt in which four men, two horses and a fully-laden wagon plummet 75 feet into a lake.
The action was staged at Lake Sherwood in the Santa Monica Mountains, just a short drive from Hollywood. In preparation for the stunt, Canutt spent a week setting up a pair of 20-foot wooden chutes faced with masonite.
The wagon and horses were positioned at the start of the first chute. At a predetermined signal, Canutt and his team kicked away a series of supporting props, causing the chute to tilt forward from the horizontal. The wagon and horses proceeded down the slope into a second inclined chute running out over the cliff edge.
Automatic trips triggered the various moving parts and – critically – released the horses’ harnesses at the last minute. A cable, invisible on camera, took much of the weight of the wagon during the descent, reducing the danger to both animals and men. A “humane officer” observed the stunt. He judged that the horses came to no physical harm, and noted they were working in front of the cameras again the following day.
Now take look at this arresting photograph from the April 1940 issue of “The International Photographer,” which captures the whole kit and kaboodle in free-fall. Can you honestly tell me those poor creatures weren’t terrified?
Four men, two horses and a wagon were half-way down a seventy-five foot drop when they were “stopped” in this spectacular shot by Joe Walters, member of Local 659, IATSE, during filming of Republic Studios’ “The Dark Command.” Ingenious devices were rigged up to accomplish this stunt and ingenious plans were laid by camera crews to record the event – original caption from “The International Photographer,” April 1940.
In 1941, the year after “The Dark Command” was released, the society known as “American Humane” published its first set of standards covering the safe treatment of animals during film production, and the Association of Motion Picture Producers agreed to give its representatives access to film sets.
Nowadays, no film producer would even consider using real horses for a scene like the one in “The Dark Command” – and quite right too. In the earliest days of preproduction, the director would undoubtedly scribble a note on the relevant script page reading: “VFX – DIGITAL HORSES!”
The frustrating thing is that, when the film got released, a studio marketing team would be eagerly claiming that everything on the movie was done for real.
What a load of horse-feathers!
The Illusion Almanac 
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