1963 TV series "Empire" - a blown-up dam and a very young Charles Bronson (without the stache)

 

In the episode of Empire scheduled for this Tuesday, March 26, a rebellious ranch hand (played by Joe Hoover) blows a hole in a dam. As anyone knows who has ever watched a good guy clean all the bad guys out of the saloon in 30 seconds, it usually isn't for real, and the fix has to be in somewhere. In this case the fixer is veteran special-effects operative Willis Cook.

To start with, Cook had a cork siding painted to resemble concrete at the sham "damsite" on the Columbia Pictures Ranch in Burbank. The "dynamite" was a charge of gunpowder which Cook affixed to the cork siding. In a nearby pump house, workmen stood ready to shoot some high-pressure water through pipes leading to a section of the cork that was lightly cut so that it would "blow" easily.

When the big moment came, a prop man lit a fuse attached to the powder charge, stuntman Richard. Elmore (doubling for Charles Bronson, the "good guy" who was trying to save the dam) ran toward the dynamite, the dam blew and the cork flew, and the water gushed forth to engulf stuntman Elmore.

Then all action was stopped, the water was turned off, Bronson replaced Elmore on the ground, and the water and the cameras came on again. Actor Hoover, the villain of the piece, showing that he wasn't all bad, ran to good-guy Bronson's rescue. They wrestled, Bronson gurgled some lines about "Gotta save that dam," and then came the call, "Cut, print it." The ordeal was over. Someone handed Bronson a towel. It was gaily colored and hardly the type for he-man Bronson, but he used it gratefully just the same.

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TV Guide | March 23-29, 1963