Yahoo Autos The Explosive Story of a Very Bungled Stunt in The Italian Job
Little ephemera from filming The Italian Job survived production. But an original, leather-bound copy of the script belonging to a crewmember revealed a tantalizing mystery. Hidden inside the script’s pages was a folded wire message that simply read: “Peter confirms Aston should go straight over cliff without teetering—Michael Deeley.”
Behind this urgent message, sent by the film producer, hid an incredible tale.
The second half of The Italian Job begins in the beautiful Alps. Having arrived in Italy, Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) and his gang of lovable rogues, in a convoy of two Jaguar E-Types and an Aston Martin DB4 Convertible, are confronted by their archnemesis, crime boss Altabani, played by Italian actor Raf Vallone. Altabani eyes up Croker’s DB4 and coolly asks, “Your car? Preeetty car,” before signaling a bulldozer to attack all three vehicles, flipping the Aston down the mountainside.
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Unfortunately, the stunt went sideways. And DB4s didn’t exactly grow on trees, said David Salamone of Blenheim Motors in London, who sourced the cars for the film.
The script described a dark blue DB4 Convertible, but Salamone was limited by availability and budget. Only 70 Convertibles were built, making them one of the rarest and most collectible Astons. Salamone sourced a DB4 in Snow Shadow Grey with a red leather interior from a Lotus dealer in London and carried out extensive mechanical work before filming began. Chassis number DB4C/1073/R became the hero car and was used for the film’s London scenes and close-up shots.
“For The Italian Job, I went to all sorts of strange places to find cars. I got cars off friends, cars out of papers, the cheapest Jags and Astons I could find,” said Salamone. Later, it was all hands on deck to get the cars to Italy: “There were no transporters. One of the E-Types was driven by my mum, and one of my school chums drove a Mini down.”
In order to complete the sequence on the mountainside in Italy, Salamone sourced another car for the shots of the Aston being smashed by the bulldozer. Cinemagoers would have to have looked very hard to realize it was a different car, but there were subtle differences. This second DB4 was a Series 5, rather than a Series 4. It had larger turn signals with chrome surrounds, sun visors, a tow-bar mount, 15-inch wire wheels, and roughly resprayed paint, among other small details.
“I paid £700. It looked rough; it was a dog,” Salamone remembered. “We painted the original grey top black with a brush just to make it look respectable. It was not in great condition, it was a very tatty car!”
August 19, 1969—the 49th day of production—got off to a great start for Salamone: “It was a lovely sunny day and I was happy as we had got all three cars to the location. After the two E-Types were crushed by the big digger it proceeded to pick up the Aston Martin to throw it over the cliff.” The DB4 was rigged with explosives, so as it rolled down the mountainside, special effects supervisor Pat Moore could detonate a charge, erupting the mangled wreck into a fireball.
Once the crew was in position, director Peter Collinson yelled, “Action!” The digger lifted the DB4 up onto the wall that ran along the edge of the cliff and let the car teeter for a couple of seconds before giving it a final push. Moore was positioned under the car, button in hand. But then, disaster.
