The Technicolor cinematography was by Sol Polito. The elaborate costumes were designed by Orry-Kelly. The movie was a Warner Brothers production. The movie was a hit. It received five Academy Award nominations including Best Color Cinematography. Bette Davis was expected to receive a nomination. She was nominated instead for "Dark Victory".
Batman Bridge
The Batman Bridge crosses the Tamar River in northern Tasmania, about 30 km north of Launceston. It was opened on 18 May 1968 by the Premier of Tasmania, Eric Reece. When it was built it was one of the first cable-stayed truss bridges in the world. It provides access between the north east and north west of Tasmania. It was named after John Batman, a Tasmanian pioneer and the founder of the city of Melbourne.
The bridge is held up by cables connected to a high A frame tower on the west bank. This tower is not straight, but leans out over the river. The bridge is in length. The main span over the river is and with a span on the western shore of . The eastern side is approached by four continuous viaduct spans. The bridge is above the high water level. The steel deck has room for two lanes of traffic and a walk way for people on both sides.
The bridge is built at the narrowest point on the Tamar River, at Whirlpool Reach. However, the east bank was found to be soft clay which would not support the bridge. The A frame tower on the west bank is built into the bedrock below the surface and supported by steel cables concreted into tunnels in the bedrock. The tower supports the whole weight of the river span of the bridge.
Tacoma Narrows Bridge (1940)
The 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the first version of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. It was a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington. The bridge was built over the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. It opened on July 1, 1940. The bridge collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. At that time, it was the third longest suspension bridge in the world in terms of main span length. The Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge were the only bridges that were larger.
Construction of the bridge started in September 1938. After the deck was built, the wind caused it to move vertically. Because of this, the people building it gave it the nickname Galloping Gertie. The movement was seen even when the bridge opened to the public. Many things were tried to stop the bridge from moving. None of these things worked. The bridge's main span collapsed under winds on the morning of November 7, 1940.
Because of World War II, the bridge could not be built again at that time. The towers and cables of the bridge were still in place. These and the rest of the bridge were taken apart and sold as scrap metal. In 1950, a new Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened in the same place. It used the first bridge's tower pedestals and cable anchorages. The parts of the bridge that fell into the water are now an artificial reef.
The bridge's collapse had lasting effects on science and engineering. In many physics books, it is used to show resonance. Its collapse also helped increase research in the field of bridge aerodynamics-aeroelastics. This has affected the designs of all the world's large long-span bridges built since 1940.
People wanted a bridge built between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula since the late 1800s. In 1889, the Northern Pacific Railway wanted to build a trestle there. The Tacoma Chamber of Commerce began working toward getting the money to build a bridge in 1923. Many well known bridge engineers were talked to about the bridge. These included Joseph B. Strauss and David B. Steinman. Later in time, Strauss was the main engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge and he designed the Mackinac Bridge. Steinman went to the area many times. He created a plan for the bridge in 1929. By 1931, the Chamber chose not to follow his plan because they thought Steinman was not doing enough to help get money to pay for the bridge. Another problem with paying for the bridge was buying out the ferry contract from a company that was running service on the Narrows at the time.
The Washington State legislature created the Washington State Toll Bridge Authority and gave $5,000 to study the request by Tacoma and Pierce County for a bridge.
From the start, getting money to pay for the bridge was a problem. Money earned from tolls on the bridge would not be enough to pay for the bridge's construction. There was support for the bridge from the U.S. Navy and Army. The Navy had a shipyard in Bremerton. The Army had McChord Field and Fort Lewis near Tacoma. The bridge would be useful to both the Army and Navy.
Clark Eldridge, an engineer working for the state, created a suspension bridge design. This design was similar to the design of many other suspension bridges. It was a design that had be shown to work very well at other places. The Washington Toll Bridge Authority asked for $11 million from the Federal Public Works Administration (PWA). Early construction plans by the Washington Department of Highways had a set of 25-foot-deep (7.6m) girders to sit beneath the roadway. These would make the roadway more stiff so it would not move easily.
Leon Moisseiff had other ideas about building the bridge. Moisseiff was a well known New York bridge engineer. He was the designer and consultant engineer for the Golden Gate Bridge. Moisseiff talked to the PWA and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) about building the bridge for less money. He suggested that they use shallower supports—girders that were only deep. His ideas meant the bridge would be slimmer but they reduced the construction costs. Moisseiff's design was chosen. The other design was said to cost too much. On June 23, 1938, the PWA approved nearly $6 million for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Tolls from the bridge would earn another $1.6 million pay for the estimated total $8 million cost.
Using Moisseiff's design, bridge construction began on September 27, 1938. Construction took only nineteen months. It cost $6.4 million. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, with a main span of , was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world at that time. The two larger bridges were the George Washington Bridge between New Jersey and New York City, and the Golden Gate Bridge, just north of San Francisco.
Because the bridge was not expected to have large amounts of traffic, the bridge was designed with only two lanes. It was just wide. This was quite narrow given how long it was. With only the -deep girders to give it extra depth, the bridge's roadway was very shallow.
The shallow and narrow girders are what caused the bridge to collapse. With such small girders, the deck of the bridge was not rigid enough. It was easily moved by the winds. The bridge was well known for its movement. A small wind could make the center span move several feet during four- to five-second intervals. This was seen by the builders and workmen during construction. It caused some of the workers to name the bridge "Galloping Gertie." Even the public felt these motions on the day that the bridge opened on July 1, 1940.
Another reason the bridge swayed and then fell was its solid sides. This did not allow wind to pass through the bridge's deck. This design allowed the bridge to catch the wind and sway, which ultimately took it down.
Because the bridge moved so much while it was being built, many ideas were used to make it move less. They included
The Washington Toll Bridge Authority hired Professor Frederick Burt Farquharson to make tests of the bridge in a wind-tunnel. He was an engineering professor at the University of Washington. Professor Farquharson and his students built a 1:200-scale model of the bridge and a 1:20-scale model of a section of the deck. The first studies ended on November 2, 1940. This was five days before the bridge collapse on November 7. He found two ways to fix the problem: