A Luger on TV-1

[Dwight Gruber]

The CBS summer replacement police procedural "Flashpoint" debuted tonight with a full-on crazed hostage taking. Real diologue:

"What's the guy carrying?"

"A Luger."

"A Luger??!?"

Lots of frantic Luger brandishing and pointing--long shots, medium closeups, full head-shot closeups (no pun intended). No gtatuitious closeups. The gun was an all-blue model--post-1937 Mauser. Muzzle was blued.

A shooting scene early on, long shot and defocussed--no idea if the gun functioned. Strong suspicion it could be a stage prop.

--Dwight

[alanint]

Lugers are impossible to blank for semi automatic fire. The toggle action does not lend itself to pure blow back functioning.
Lugers seem to need the inertia of the bullet traveling down the barrel to initiate the toggle break.
I have never seen a Luger in movies or on TV fire more than one round. When it seems they are firing semi-automatically, there are usually camera cut-aways involved or over imposed sound effects.

[Dwight Gruber]

At Reno a few years ago, I saw a Luger for sale which had been modified for blank prop use. The receiver rails under the toggle ears had been drilled and tapped, and a small bolt screwed into each which protruded just enough to keep the toggle from being fully locked. The barrel was constricted to increase the blowback pressure. The blanks were full-overall-length, crimped to approximate a bullet ogive. The whole thing was designed to be fully multi-shot functional, and the seller included some blanks and the source to buy more.

I can tell you from personal observation that, of the movies on the list, "Il Capo dei Capi," "Charlie's Angels," "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (see the entry for this one particularly), and "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" (actually, a Borchardt) all have semi-auto fire during a single camera cut, sometimes clearly showing the toggle in action. There are a couple of others described, but I have not seen these.

There are, of course, many more cases in which you are absolutely correct about clever camera cuts and the "magic" of cinema creation. I recall the particluarly embarressing moments where a shooter will fire a shot and the action will lock open (not limited to Luger firing), where the armorer only put a single cartridge in the gun for the scene, and the movie creators didn't care--or know--enough to cover up the stupid result.

Gunshot sound is, of course, an entirely artificial addition, as is the sound of ejected casings falling to the ground. Also, there exist complete special effects arms modifications which are cunningly designed to appear to operate, but function by gas pressure from a concealed source, or "shoot" flammable-gas flame for an enhanced flash effect. See the entry for "The Blues Brothers" for one of these modifications.

"Hollywoodland" provides a good example of providing the hyper-real "cinematic effect" of gun firing without the prop Luger ever being actuated.

--Dwight

[Johnny C. Kitchens]

Don't forget "Sergeant York" where they used a Luger, because they couldn't get the Colt to function with blanks...