1920s Studio backlot tank with model ships. The major U.S. and European film studios establish effects departments to accommodate the demand for visual and mechanical effects.
Astonished critics wonder if the creatures are real.
The ill-starred production begins with location shooting in Italy and is recalled to the studio, amid skyrocketing costs and rumors that extras were killed in the filming of a sea battle. Back in Hollywood, Cedric Gibbons and A. Arnold Gillespie devise special effects to complete the film, including a hanging miniature. Forty two cameras cover the climactic chariot race scene. Five horses are killed in a chariot wreck. Lang's virtuoso effects artist, Eugene Shuftan, also invents the Shuftan process, which allows full-size actors to appear in miniature sets through a variation on the glass shot.