Spills and Chills is a 1949 English language documentary written and directed by Robert Youngson, starring Dan Donaldson. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-Reel.
This is a fairly straightforwardly compiled short feature but boy does it make your eyes water. It has assembled a whole range of half-wits who make their living doing things that most sane people can only watch in awe! Initially, it’s the wing-walkers strapped to aircraft made from balsa wood and s
... ellotape that impress/bamboozle but as we progress through this hectically paced ten minutes, we realise that they might actually be the most sensible as others dangle from ropes below “gas-filled bags” or crawl into a box made of solid ice - or metal one that swiftly doubles up as a pizza oven. There’s the young Mildred who takes to the skies precariously and an array of gents who seem intent on risking life and limb by scaling buildings (with or without a blindfold) or walking on stilts twenty floors up over Manhattan. The frequently quite amiably sarcastic narrator (Dan Donaldson) calls them “Daredevils”, but I think I might find another word as this compilation proves really quite squirm-making at times. If you are in any way acrophobic as opposed to acrobatic, then best give this a wide berth.
