20 Things You Didn't Know About Raising Arizona
1. A Tiny Harness Was Attached To A Lizard To Keep It Safe From An Explosion
If you have any hope of getting your film made, you need to ensure the safety of any animals you plan to work with on set. And for the lizard that gets blown up in an explosion, the Coens had a rather adorable way of keeping it out of harm's way.
Leonard Smalls' cruelty extends further than just being a bounty hunter; he likes to kill animals, and blows up a rabbit with a hand grenade that was achieved through editing. For the lizard however, the scene shows it being blasted from a rock after Smalls fires a shotgun at it.
To make sure the lizard wasn't harmed by the gunblast, a small harness was attached to it to yank it out of shot once the gun was fired. Luckily for the Coens, the harness plan worked perfectly and no animals were harmed during the making of Raising Arizona.