posted 09-30-2005 02:28 PM            

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In a Knight's Tale, Heath Ledger's character William appears to dislocate his shoulder and has it put back by a wooden machine like a mangle! Is this based on fact or made up?

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posted 10-03-2005 12:51 AM         

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I think that it was based on an actual device but I'm not certain I'll check out the special features on the DVD again I know they talked about it.

Alan Tudyks "Wat" character is hilarious!

posted 10-07-2005 02:00 PM            

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You bet it was! A heard a jockey say that a dislocated shoulder is the most painful thing in the world - more than any broken bones! Thanks for the info. God, I love that film!

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posted 10-14-2005 03:02 PM            

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It's a seriously (unserious) cool movie. And Chaucer's my hero.

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posted 10-14-2005 09:15 PM         

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Chaucer is great but Wat's my personal favorite character.

"If you betray us, I will fong you! until your insides are out your outsides are in!"

Oh! he is hilarious!!

posted 12-06-2005 09:14 PM            

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From what I understand, the soundstage company in the Czech republic just sort of had it in their prop department. They also could find whole goat hides, and other medieval type stuff in there.

You might be interested to know that the medical department on my Navy ship had a somewhat similar rack-like device. They said it was for applying traction to broken leg bones. Apparently when you set broken bones, you're supposed to pull the appendage out, so that the broken bone will slide together more closely. Ours, of course, was made of stainless steel, and nylon straps.

posted 12-19-2005 01:16 AM            

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Don't be afraid of the rack... Heath's performance was highly exagerrated.

They'd let us try it out on each other for practice (Without the broken bones!) and it felt kinda good.

The idea is to stretch the arm a little, so the bones line up again, not to rip it off. We've probably all stretched our arms a bit to relieve tension.

posted 12-24-2005 06:57 PM            

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You've never had a dislocated shoulder then Steve? I've seen people (grown men I might add) on medical programmes writhing in agony and that's just with the injury. The treatment (modern-day) only exacerbates the pain.

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posted 01-07-2006 07:30 PM         

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well..... that kind of depends on the pain threshold that a particular person has. Take this for example when I was a kid I flipped my bike and cleanly snapped my collarbone. Yeah I cried for a few minutes but afterwards I was swinging on the jungle gym. In fact nobody realized I'd broken the thing until a day or so later when I was swinging from a bar and my mom watched the bones moving back and forth. Nearly made her pass out : )
What I'm saying is i know people who would probably be immobilized by the pain but I'd be swinging on a bar with a broken collarbone.

And on a side note sorry about your nose sounds awful.