How did they make cars fall apart in old movies (2017)

I immediately assumed this article was about the French movie Le Corniaud (1965) in which a 2CV falls apart in 250 pieces in an accident—this scene specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnLj5Xo4zBc&t=19s It became one of the most iconic scene of French comedy movies. To prepare the scene, the special effects engineer sawed off the car in 250 pieces, reattached every piece with hooks, and secured the hooks with "explosive nuts". At the right moment, the actor driving the car pushed a button to trigger the (tiny) explosives which made the car fall apart. Here is a French article about it: https://2cv-legende.com/expo-de-la-2cv-du-film-le-corniaud-a...

PS: the French wikipedia article on the movie has a picture of the explosive bolts they used: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corniaud#L'accident_de_la_2...

For those who don't know, Keaton was amazingly dedicated as a comedic stuntman - a silent era Jackie Chan (he was less popular after the silent era, but kept working until his death in the 60s).

From Wikipedia: Garry Moore recalled, "I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, 'I'll show you.' He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that's how he did it—it hurt—but you had to care enough not to care." This would have been in about 1955, when Keaton (born 1899) was an old man and well past his heyday of really dangerous stunts (he once broke his neck during an early stunt).

And he usually had an amazing commitment to film in a lot of other ways. The first time he was shot in a film he took a camera apart to figure out how it worked, because he really cared about every detail (though in the middle of his career this really hurt him, as execs wanted to just trot him up in front of the camera as a high paid celebrity - they didn't want him wasting his valuable time fussing over details, or risk their investment letting him do stunts).

Those reasons seem to make sense but I'd say just as much has to do with Buster Keaton himself, he had nerves of steel.

During the filming of the Civil War movie The General there are images of Keaton doing things that even the bravest of stuntmen wouldn't do these days and we'd now rely on film animation and tricks to make the scenes work.

For instance, Keaton—who obviously was very fit and agile—is filmed sitting on a cowcatcher of a moving locomotive whilst removing rail ties that were placed on the lines to impede the train's progress and then tossing them aside.

I read somewhere that Clyde Bruckman the film's director gave instructions to the cameraman "to keep filming the scene until finished or until Keaton is killed" or words to that effect.

I can't remember whether Bruckman was referring to this scene or another such as when he's running across the locomotive's tender (the comment could equally have applied to many other scenes I reckon). Others who are more knowledgeable could perhaps fill in the details.

I like this movie, Keaton was a great performer and his movies are a testament to that.

"The only secret of magic is I'm willing to work harder on it than you think it's worth" - Penn Jillette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trRJ4J15xU8

It’s hard to believe they could make cars fall apart so perfectly without the tech we have today.

This is both engineering and art. Magnificent.

Just don’t look up how they made the horses fall down.

Of course, for contemporary auto makers, it might be useful to know how to make cars that don't fall apart. Seriously.