Swords and Daggers

Property knives and daggers with retractable blades are simple to construct, but swords and rapiers present many problems. When in the course of the action these have to appear to be thrust into an actor’s body it is nearly always necessary to adopt suitable camera viewpoints and sympathetic editing.

Dagger

The blade, spring-loaded to retract into the handle, should have parallel sides and a short, blunt point. This is necessary to ensure that the tip of the blade can be lost from sight in the thickness of clothing. Blood, contained in a piston in the handle can be made to flow down a tube concealed in the blade.

Fixed dagger

A shallow, slot-shaped container attached to a plate worn under clothing will receive a sawn-off dagger for scenes in which such a weapon is supposedly stuck into a human body. It is not very practical for the insertion to be undertaken as part of the action. It is better to fix the dagger beforehand and for the action to be mimed, shielded from the camera by the victim’s body. Then, when he falls the implanted dagger can be seen protruding from his back.

An alternative method and one which calls for only a small hole to be made in the clothing is to fix a threaded spigot to the sawn-off blade which is screwed into a threaded boss harnessed to the body.

Retractable sword

A parallel blade, made in two parts can be constructed so that the lower half slides out of sight behind the upper half. The blade should be dark grey to disguise the join.

A flexible steel rule can be made to retract into a container fitted behind the handle and guard of a rapier, but best results are achieved on film by withdrawing the sword and reversing the action in printing.

Blood spurt

A dagger made from metal, or glass fibre and resin, can be fitted with a hollow rubber handle containing imitation blood. A fine-bore stainless-steel tube secreted in the blade allows the ‘blood’ to be discharged as required. This is a useful implement when the blade has to be drawn across some part of the body, leaving a bleeding gash.

SWORD AND DAGGERS

1. Stabbing knife
The blade is retractable and the piston handle squirts ‘blood’ from the point of the blade.

2. Cutting knife
When the rubber handle is squeezed, ‘blood’ flows from the knife edge.

3. Dagger socket
Worn under the clothing, such a socket holds a sawn-off dagger.

4. Penetration tube
Body flesh can be pulled in between the rib-cage and the hip. A tube is inserted in the space and the clothing packed out around it. A sword can then be thrust through the tube.