Bow used in old moives

Cody Roiter · February 21, 2009, 07:48:00 PM

Hello Guys, I just got done wacthin the moive deliverance. And got thinkin what are some other moives that used tradbow in them... and the names I don't know only of deliverance that used bows... I was thinkin if there where any other moives that did used bows they mosy likey would have been Bear or Pearson....

Thanks Guys,

Cody

wadde · February 21, 2009, 08:46:00 PM

Cody I wish I could remember the names but there were several that I saw that there were recurve bows used. If I remember I will let you know.

Cody Roiter · February 21, 2009, 08:48:00 PM

thnaks wadde, I am sure there where many as well...

ses · February 21, 2009, 10:57:00 PM

what was the bow rambo used with broadhead that would up a tank

SELFBOW19953 · February 22, 2009, 07:00:00 AM

Recurve (a Bear, I think) was used by Wilford Brimley in the Jean Claud Van Daam movie filmed in the Bayou.

SELFBOW19953 · February 22, 2009, 07:08:00 AM

Also, in the TV version of the Odyssey from a few years ago, the bow used when Odysseus comes home to kill Penelops's suitors looked like a recurve. All of the various Robin Hood movies-John Derek, Richard Greene (1950's TV), Kevin Costner, Mel Brooks-, also The Scorpion King, in Predator, Arnie makes a bow from a bundle of sticks, in Rio Bravo, the character Bull (Mitchums deputy) used a longbow.

KYArcher · February 22, 2009, 02:09:00 PM

I think Rambo had a Hoyt?
Scott

reddogge · February 22, 2009, 07:36:00 PM

I believe the 1938 version of Robin Hood was the one where Howard Hill did all of the trick shots in it. He actually shot the actors who were wearing square blocks of cork strapped to them. Talk about confidence.

Blackhawk · February 22, 2009, 08:43:00 PM

Selfbow, I just saw that Van Daam movie with Wilford Brimley shooting a recurve, but believe it was a Martin hunter. It had some pretty good scenes of Wilford shooting the bow, so I bet he had some previous archery experience.

The western movie "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan had Woody Strode portraying a bounty hunter who used a longbow.

Wade Phillips · February 22, 2009, 09:55:00 PM

Cody - The 1922 Robin Hood trick shooting was done by Capt. Jack A. Hoefer, old time tackle maker and archery shop owner who obviously used his own bows.

Hoefer also did the archery prop work in Cecil B. DeMille's 1932 "Sign of the Cross" using his own tackle. In doing research for "Broadheads 1971-1971, Identification and Rarity Guide, Second Edition", I bought a copy of "Sign of the Cross" so I could watch the archery scenes frame by frame to authenticate a large Cast Aluminum Broadhead that was given to me years earlier by one of Hoefer's employees who told me it was used in the that 1932 move. I was able to authenticate the head in the scene where the Romans ambush the Christians during their secret gathering.

Of course Howard Hill used his own tackle for the trick shooting in the 1938 Robin Hood, which is still my favorite version.

Hugh Rich did a lot of archery consulting work for the Movie Industry in California. Hugh bought out Hoefer's archery shop. Hugh was just a short distance from the movie industry. Because Hugh supplied the archery tackle and did the archery consulting on many movies as far back as the 1940s, he got to know many of the prominent actors of the era. They naturally contacted Hugh when they needed help with anything to do with archery in a movie.

If Hugh were still alive, he could tell you the exact bows that were used in many of the old movies that are 40 to 60 years old.

In the dozens of letters Hugh wrote to me, in the late 1970s and into the 1980s there may be something about some of those old movie bows, but I don't recall any specifics. Every time I dig into the fat folder of Hugh's old letters, I get drawn in reading his words for half a day or more. Should probably just have those letters transcribed into a book.