I love them all, but I especially love the last behind-the-scenes picture in color. That's the director, Tobe Hooper, spotting me to make sure the steel ring on the harness went over the meat hook, and not in my back. Poor Leatherface, beautifully played by Gunnar Hansen, spent a lot of those couple of days filming, lifting me... in that godawful heat, no AC, no fans, nothing. Much sweating did occur LOL, but we got 'er done! On the left you see our cinematographer, Danny Pearl, balancing on a ladder, and our ADP, Lou Perryman supporting Danny. That's Bill Vail, 'Kirk', who played my man. I remember this as:
Karo Syrup Day ... I'd have to say this picture says a thousand words. Thanks to @dontsaychainsaw for sharing it with me. One thing I can tell you, although there was no air conditioning and no fans on the set, not one that I can remember, it was always cooler in the Sawyer kitchen because there was a side door leading out to the side of the house. As far as I recall, we shot Pam’s meat hook scene with Leatherface first thing the morning of the day we shot the meat hook scenes, and after lunch one of the last shots they needed was a shot of Pam hanging with her feet dangling over the bucket. In the final cut, the audience sees those 2 seconds of my feet dangling and dripping blood into the bucket, blink and you'll miss it. There was more footage, but that footage was edited way down to avoid showing too much blood for the censor's sake. People tend to forget what censorship was like in the early 70s and how massively that’s changed in the past 52 years. The 'dripping blood' was Dottie’s clever gift, consisting of red food coloring added to Karo syrup, much to the local flies' delight. It had the the right consistency for dripping slowly down my legs and into the bucket. Did I mention the flies? Yes, suddenly, there were many flies buzzing around. Uninvited. On that hot, sticky, humid, sweltering day, I was very popular with a lot of flies. Right after Tobe said, “Cut”, pre-planned, Dottie Pearl, our make-up person, but actually Dottie did so much more than make-up. Anyway, we I tore out the side door to the kitchen and all the way out to the windmill and hose. Dottie picked up the hose and turned on the spigot as I simultaneously began to peel off my red shorts, swimsuit, and harness, Dottie began spraying me down. YUCK!! . Years, later, I had a dejavu moment when I found I related to Jules and Vincent. Think Pulp Fiction, Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega covered in blood as Harvey Keitel, The Wolfe, enjoys spraying them down in Jimmy Dimmick’s backyard.
I can testify: Flies love Karo Syrup, me, not so much.
