A Fight All Too Real
Sometimes the fight scenes in the silent movies looked very real – because they were. Scenes for the 1915 film The Yankee Girl were filmed on California's Santa Catalina Island. The two actors who took part in a fight in the movie (Howard Davies and Forrest Stanley), apparently used it as an opportunity to settle an old score.
"The clash in The Yankee Girl contained 'business' the director never intended and over which he could exercise no control. The two panting athletes were finally disengaged, Davies growling something about Stanley 'butting,' and Stanley appealing to the referee against 'strangle holds.' But Dal Clawson, the cameraman, merely grinned for he knew the treasure that now safely reposed in his magazine." – Movie Magazine, September 1915