Gordon Mitchell and the fires of JULIUS CAESAR AND THE PIRATES

From: His Name Is Chuck 4

Interview by William Connolly and Tom Betts on April 1, 1990

Spaghetti Cinema #59, December 1994

Gordon Mitchell: Another one that was very scary was when I did GIULIO CESARE CONTRO I PIRATI with Abbe Lane and Gustavo Rojo. They were shooting flaming arrows at us. It was terrible because they had the big pots of gasoline - they were dipping their arrows in and they were lighting them... And then the director hollered, "Stop!" And these boys didn't understand too much and they put those flaming arrows back in the gasoline. And it just blew everything. There were about 20 people wiped out.

WC: Was this on one of the boats?

GM: Yeah, one of the boats that they had built for the thing.

WC: And the boat caught fire?

GM: Oh, it had buring all over...

TB: Gasoline would burn on the surface of the water.

GM: Some guys got saved because they went in and the salt water did help, but they had... The ambulance... They had to wait to get to take them back about sixty miles away.