8 Movies That Put Their Extras Through Hell
4. Extras Were Thrown Down A Pyramid Covered In Sandpaper - The Woman God Forgot
Here he is again: the MVP of our list, Cecil B. DeMille. What horrors is he inflicting on his poor actors this time? Well... let's find out.
Towards the end of his 1917 silent film The Woman God Forgot, there's a scene that required a bunch of extras to be tossed down the side of a prop pyramid. That might not sound too reckless at first - when you look at it, it's almost like a giant slide - but remember that this is 100 years ago, and the standards of safety and craftsmanship weren't what they are today.
The pyramid had been built out of wood and covered in paper, and upon this paper, sand had been glued, to give it the appearance of stone. So when the extras slid down it, they were scraping against sandpaper the entire time. You can imagine how painful that must've been.
Clearly aware that the pyramid slide would injure those who used it, a member of the crew stood at the bottom with a bucket of iodine, ready to patch the extras up. Top lad.