The man at the gas station accidentally dropping a match into a river of gasoline causing such a conflagration - unlikely.
The match would go out when hitting the liquid! It's a more likely occurrence with a gasoline vapor, but that doesn't seem to be the case in the scene.
I certainly won't claim to be a scientific expert, but my understanding being that gas is flammable, I wouldn't see why it wouldn't ignite a spill. You see it in all kinds of movies, when people use gas to start arson fires. All they do is light the trail of gasoline. Maybe it's artistic license in all cases, but it seems plausible to me.
shareIt is a bit of artistic license in all the cases: gasoline needs a spark in its immediate vicinity to ignite (hence the need for "spark plugs" in combustion engines.) Even a spill won't ignite under the conditions as portrayed in The Birds and tons of other movies with exploding cars. Throwing a burning match or cigarette onto gasoline would in fact have no effect. Other more flammable liquids that ignite with less hassle are used in the movies, like benzene, paraffin, etc.
Personally, these technical flaws in movies don't bother me much. Gasoline burns and explosions do happen in real life - it can in fact be caused by a little spark of static electricity too. I reckon it would take tension away from the dramatic moments in film to have everything portrayed 100% realistically. So this is one of those artistic licenses we shouldn't question too harshly if we're to enjoy movies.
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I made a home movie in junior high in which a friend of mine poured out a trail of gasoline and then ignited it with a match. What's the difference between that and how it happens in THE BIRDS?
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The lighting of a match is a big spark in itself, and when it's quite close to the exposed gasoline, it will ignite, naturally. It's never a good idea to drop a match onto gasoline, either. Same with a burning log. Burning wood gives off sparks - we've all seen it a barbecue or camp fire. I mentioned static electricity - also enough to cause gasoline to ignite. So, a gasoline spill is highly dangerous anywhere, no argument. And sometimes, while it's the exception and not a rule, a car rolling down a hill will really explode.
The standard Hollywood-treatment of it though, where lighting up a smoke several yards away from it where the fumes are too thinned out, or flicking a cigar onto a spill causes a spectacular explosion, is dramatic license. And there's not much wrong with it, in my opinion. (It's different to, say, a plot hole.) I think it's silly to expect movies to portray realism in all aspects - it's in many ways like a stage play. Artistic license is part of the deal (as long as it doesn't get ridiculous, of course!)
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I've always taken the "match lights gasoline" motif for granted, but its just one of those movie things, I guess.
My personal favorite along these lines is when a character "knocks out a guard." A quick punch to the jaw -- or in some movies, a quick karate chop to the SHOULDER -- and the guy passes out, just like that. You'll have some movies where the conscious character sticks around and does all sorts of things(like crack a safe) with the "knocked out" person nearby, just lying there. Or the conscious person picks the pockets of the knocked out person and the person doesn't revive.
I doubt you can "knock out" a person in real life, just like that...without risk of brain injury, etc. And certainly not for that long.
In another movie, Hitchcock was realistic about a "knocking out":
In "Psycho,' Anthony Perkins knocks John Gavin out by hitting him on the head with a heavy ornate Victorian object. Gavin hits the floor. Perkins runs up to the Bates mansion and within two minutes is in the fruit cellar dressed like his mother moving on Vera Miles with a knife.
...and Gavin appears behind Perkins and overpowers him. Gavin revived from his "knock out." Which I'll bet happens in real life in those rare occasions in which a person is "knocked out."
On the other hand, in "Notorious," Cary Grant actually knocks out Ingrid Bergman with one light gentlemanly punch to her jaw! (She's driving drunk and dangerously out of control.)
OK. Knocking people out. Igniting gasoline with a match. Car exploding.Any other "movie creative license motifs?"
but what about the vulcan death grip?? :)
shareWell...that was mystical.
We KNOW what a punch is...
Maybe Ingrid Bergman had a glass jaw.
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Hit someone on the point of their chin will knock out a few people. My mother told me to do this with a combative person you are trying to save from drowning. Technique works with some. Other people have a hard head.
shareI feel like this part in the movie could be taken in many different ways. When the man is sitting there lighting up a cigarette and "not watching the stream of gasoline" I feel that they played this as fake as could be. When gasoline is dumped it has air-simulated fumes and would catch on fire from the fumes, not just from dropping it.
share"Throwing a burning match or cigarette onto gasoline would in fact have no effect."
FALSE. 100% False. I know,as I threw a lit Marlboro cigarette on a stream of gas leaking from a cars gas tank in which the driver had no gas cover to his tank (1968 RoadRunner).
Scared the hell out of me as I watched the flame slowly catch up with the car.
Apparently the stream was interrupted before anything else happened. I stood there in horror along with 2 of my friends saying to me 'Oh man, you f'd up !!'. I imagined the car was going to explode like in the movies but thankfully it didn't'. Still, the gas was ignited, no doubt about, by my lit cigarette tossed onto the street.
Exactly. Smoking materials won't light gasoline. That's why the smoking areas in gas stations are placed around the pumps.
shareWhile the film appears to have a dropped match ignite liquid gasoline; there would be an amount of gasoline vapor near the ground above the liquid fuel and that would ignite and is actually more explosive than liquid gasoline.
shareWould you stand in a big puddle of gasoline and strike a match and drop it to test your theory? I hope not.
shareHow long does it take gasoline vapors to spread? The guy with the cigar is standing around for several seconds while the people in the restaurant yell at him.
I recall Hitchcock defending TORN CURTAIN's scene where the hero and a female contact spend an almost laughable amount of time trying to kill an East German agent. Hitch said he wanted to show that it's not that easy to kill someone.
Howzabout slapping a hysterical person to calm them down? I saw this done in real life once and the "slappee" grew even more hysterical.
Or the way motor vehicles nearly always are ready to go as soon as the ignition key is turned? Of course, DOUBLE INDEMNITY played with this, when MacMurray and Stanwyck are trying to drive away after killing her hubby.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
i totally agree with your statement. even if that did happen, how did he not notice the river of gas flowing towards him? i think this shows how careless people were back then?
shareHe put the match out before he threw it to the ground. So I don't feel that just the heat dropping into cold gasoline stream would ignite and make the vehicle explode spontaneously. But since its a movie it needs to be dramatic.
shareActually, that's not correct. The people in the restaurant were yelling at him trying to warn him, he was distracted by their yelling and the match burnt his fingers and he drop it.
My main problem with that scene isn't whether a match, lit or otherwise, could ignite the gasoline, it's how in the world that guy couldn't smell the gasoline river flowing under his feet to begin with when he got out of the car.
He got what he deserved for being so addicted to smoking cigars not to be aware of his surroundings.
i watched this myth busters about static electricity setting off a spark in gas vaper making ie explode. it worked. so yes the vaper is flamable and so then the gas should be as well. maybe they used lighter fluid it would light if a match hit it. ive lit fires with the stuff before and the match dose not go out or at least not right away.
sharei thought that is was preety funny when the fire exploded i thought that that would not happen also. and i thought it was crazy when every thing exploded
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