You'd have to ask the question, why would a theater have trapdoors that were lethal?
I just rewatched the film:
He lands on his feet.
He's unconscious, but I think in real life, you wouldn't be knocked unconscious unless you hit your hand. He would be wincing in pain from a broken leg.
He doesn't appear to have any bodily splatting.
www.examiner.com/x-3877-dc-film-industry-examiner
Ordinarily, during a rehearsal or show, there would be safety nets beneath the trap doors. Obviously, the stage was closed down, probably for cleaning, or at least that's probably the official explanation.
And yes, Carson Dyle is really dead this time. Broke his bones. Actually, hitting with your hand is the only way to even possibly survive such a fall, In Judo, you learn to absorb the impact of a fall by slapping the floor with your hand, and a fall from a short distance would mean maybe a broken hand, but from the distance we see in the film, a man falling is pretty much dead meat 99% of the time.
How do we know it's not a fake? It looks like a fake to me.
What does it mean that he broke his bones? Your heart, your blood, your brain, your spine, your lungs are what keep you alive. Breaking your bones would make you paralyzed but not dead, or am I incorrect? Also, did he break all 208 bones in his body?
Also, he didn't look physically altered upon falling. He just fell on his back after falling on his feet.
I know I'm really overthinking this.
I'd like to hope he didn't die. I suppose that would also require a long tangential explanation about how I feel about likeable villains dying in movies and what not, and I'll forgo that for now.
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You wouldn't have to hit your head. You've still got to worry about g-forces and internal injuries (rib fractures, your pelvis being thrust into your lower organs, spine compression, etc). From the film it looked like about a 20-25 foot fall. That's a big enough drop to kill someone. Not necessarily instantly but it's happened before. Just a couple weeks ago it happened at a Rangers game; a fan fell 20 feet from an upper deck. He was fine and conscious after the fall but died within an hour when he went into cardiac arrest.
PS: This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R didn't exist.share
I always thought it was an awkward "death" scene anyway, and they easily just could've had him fall on his side by the time he landed.
Main point was he was unable to do anything after falling, dead or not. Wouldn't have got up right away and fought with Grant :P
shareDyle died. As a previous poster said, the fall was quite a substantial one. It would have sent massive shock-waves through his body. Ever jumped over a fence barefoot and landed on hard ground before? Hurts, doesn't it? That's what I think of when I watch the scene. I don't think it's a "poor" death scene in any way. It's original. Not all bad guys have to die from a bullet.
Also, I watched this again with my GF the other night (first time she had seen it, and she LOVED the film lol), and she thinks he may have broken his back somehow from the fall, which I agreed with.
"It looks a bit sweaty in there so you may need to apply baby powder" Zapp Brannigan
On the "Charade" DVD commentary, director Stanley Donen says that the concept of a theater stage floor with all those trap doors...was a complete fantasy, written into the script. No stages have that many trap doors, said Donen. The stage where Matthau walks is real(in Paris). The trap doors and Grant below...Universal Studios soundstage.
Matthau's fall(SPOILERS? Well, its in the heading) has been debated. Its a dummy falling, then the real Matthau lays there with Grant walking over. The shot of Grant walking over shows that it was certainly distance enough to kill a man...and the impact of the dummy reflects a man who spine was probably instantaneously severed and whose neck was likely snapped. Dead.
Funny thing: whether the fall is "bad" or not...it is certainly unique in movies. I don't think I've ever seen someone die from a fall THAT WAY before or since.
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Despite what others have said, it's unlikely he'd be killed instantly by such a fall, since he was falling feet first. With medical care, he'd have a good chance of surviving, even fifty years ago. If he turned in the fall so he hit his head, then he'd probably die from it. Even in that case he might not die instantly, but he'd be unconscious. (It's possible to die from a head impact if you are just standing and fall over and hit your head on something very hard, like a curb -- doesn't happen often, but it can.)
Edward
Yes, they did things differently in those days. People didn't always need a hail of bullets to kill them.
But I still have to admit it was a funny way to go and the drop couldn't have been that far.
Don't forget the fact that hitting the floor as hard as he did might have dislodged an organ or two.
shareWell, if you look carefully, as he's lying there his leg is twitching a bit. I suppose he could still have been alive, or else it was a muscular/nerve reflex action. Hard to tell.
shareWhat are you people talking about here, is beyond me :
"Dyle" was supposed to die from the fall. That's a movie, not real life.
Which simply means that the director did a sloppy job when filming that fall (/directing the body-double that took the dive/kept the best looking take). Had he done it look more realistic, this thread wouldn't have existed.
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Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past