BLADE Magazine

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the May 2002 issue of BLADE magazine. It’s the first part in a three-part series about The Iron Mistress. You can read the entire series, plus 10 years of back issues, in this digital collection.

A “Choicely Good” Knife

“It’s choicely good; I never thought such a knife could be,” remarked Jim Bowie as he handled the knife with its gleaming brass-backed blade, silver-lugged crossguard and shiny black hilt that showcased a scalloped brass ferrule and fancy nameplate.

“It will never be again,” concluded its maker, James Black, as he stepped forward added, “I fused into it a fragment of a star. For better or worse, that knife has a bit of heaven in it, or a bit of hell.”

With these words, actor Alan Ladd, as Bowie, and David Wolfe, as Black, summed up 50 years ago in Warner Bros.’ film version of Paul I. Wellman’s best-selling 1951 novel, The Iron Mistress, what was to become, for better or worse, the world’s best known and, in some cases, favorite interpretation of Jim Bowie’s knife.

An Enduring Mystery

Actually, they had every right to do so, since whatever knife, or knives, the historic Jim Bowie may have owned disappeared after his valiant death on March 6, 1836, in the crumbling mission-fortress of San Antonio de Valero, nicknamed the Alamo, at the hands of hordes of Mexican soldiers.

This event, while giving Bowie immortal fame, unfortunately caused the exact style, mountings, dimensions and identity of whoever made his equally legendary knife to be argued by his family, including older brothers John and Rezin, and their descendants, as well as friends, historians, writers, collectors and fans ever since. Once Warner Bros. acquired the rights to Wellman’s novel, the chore of through the existing research and period bowie knives in order to arrive at a credible visual of Bowie’s blade was added to the other production concerns, such as the casting of the larger-than-life Bowie himself and deciding exactly how much of Wellman’s sprawling, epic novel to film.

Not only was the book colorful, befitting the real life Bowie, but it was also expensive in film terms. There were pirate fights, knife fights, Indian fights, fistfights, gunfights, and the Texas War of Independence from Mexico, culminating with Bowie’s force of possibly 200-260 men at the Alamo against an army of thousands.

As with his knife-and since the historic Bowie left no written record an his life known of thus far. The historians who preceded Wellman had to piece together all the salient events leading up to Bowie’s untimely yet heroic death. They were far from successful in many instances, so much so that Bowie and his knife, or knives, have been shrouded in legend almost from the day he died, and in some cases before then.

In choosing a fictionalized rendition, Wellman obviously not only felt that it wasn’t necessary to document his sources, but decided to incorporate all the fragmented, and sometimes inaccurate, 19th-century accounts on Bowie into a cohesive narrative, even if the author had to invent characters to bridge the events.

Adapting the Novel for the Silver Screen

When Warner Bros. decided to eliminate portions of Bowie’s life in adapting the novel for the screen, including the pirates, Indian fights and the entire Texas Revolution, they had to further confound history by bridging the already fictionalized gaps of Wellman’s narrative.

The fact that Wellman and Warner Bros. did it so convincingly has caused succeeding writers and people who should know better to believe that Bowie’s femme fatale in the novel, Judalon de Bornay, played by the gorgeous Virginia Mayo in the film, was an actual person and that Bowie’s knife was made from a fragment of a star, or to be more specific, a meteorite.

Furthermore, not only did the book and film add more myths to Bowie’s already jam-packed legend, but there are those who are just as unsure as to who made the knife for the movie and the circumstances surrounding it as they are about the knife, or knives, Bowie wielded in real life. For years, many believed that John Nelson Cooper made The Iron Mistress movie knife.

Others insisted it was Bo Randall. Only last year, a well-known cutlery writer indicated that Jimmy Lile was the artificer. All three makers drafted versions of it on request after the movie was released, but not for the movie itself. Still others are traipsing through the Smithsonian Institution to find the actual prototype on which the knife was supposedly based.

Fortunately, unlike the historic Jim Bowie, the prop knives and the primary source records regarding the film still exist, and those involved with the production lived long enough to share their insights.

Setting the Stage

Turning the clock back to 1951, these records show that Wartier Bros. initially considered John Wayne, William Holden, Steve Cochran, Burt Lancaster, Jeff Chandler and Charlton Heston to play the larger-than-life Bowie.

However, at the time, Wayne was trying to get his own Alamo project going, which involved Bowie as a central character. Though he was starring in other films at Warner Bros. during the period, where his contract was split three ways between Warner Bros., RKO and Republic Pictures, Wayne was mistakenly led to believe by Republic’s president, Herbert J, Yates, that Republic was committed to also allow him to direct his Alamo film, as well as produce and star in it.

At the same time, while Warner Bros. was considering other options, 20th Century Fox president Darryl F. Zanuck announced that, “There aren’t any box office stars anymore except John Wayne and Alan Ladd.”

It’s interesting to note that Ladd’s 10-year contract was coming up for renewal at Paramount Pictures in 1951. Upset with the roles he was getting there, Ladd announced that he would be taking offers from other studios.

Team Iron Mistress

With these factors in place, Warner Bros. wooed Ladd away from Paramount, as well as from Fox who was also angling for him, and gave him the Bowie role to showcase the studio’s new contract with the star.

Warner Bros. then backed the film with a top production team. Besides assuring the studio that Ladd would be a credible Bowie, it was this team that spearheaded The Iron Mistress. The triumvirate of producer Henry Blanke (The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre), director Gordon Douglas (San Quentin, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye), and art director John Gabriel Beckman (The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca) would play monumental roles in the finalized film version of The Iron Mistress.

Making The Iron Mistress Knife

With the Warner Bros. research department behind them, Blanke, Douglas and Beckman examined all the then-known accounts and photos of authentic bowie knives. Like Wellman, they also consulted Raymond W. Thorp’s 1948 book, Bowie Knife. In the end they decided to adapt the antique bowie labeled “Fig. 3” in T.B. Tryon’s historical account, American Toothpick, from the April 1941 issue of Antiques Magazine.

It’s interesting to note that they also saw that the knife had a similar blade shape to the 19th-century folding bowie, termed “clasp knife,” with a brass strip on the blade spine in the Smithsonian Institution.

Since Thorp described the brass-strip feature as being on some bowie knives made by one of Jim Bowie’s knifemakers, James Black, and Wellman said that the feature was on the knife Black made for Bowie, Blanke, Douglas and Beckman felt that they had “solved the mystery.”

Of course, other influencing factors included the similarity of the clip point on the knife facing page 97 in Thorp’s book, as well as Tryon’s belief in his American Toothpick article that the knife in “Fig. 3” was the style the historic Bowie used in the Sept. 19, 1827, Sandbar Fight, which initiated Bowie’s fame, and the fact that the brass strip could be traced back to the Highland dirk knives of Bowie’s Scottish ancestry.

Though Jim Bowie’s brother, Rezin, described the Sandbar Knife as having it 9 1/4-inch blade, family friend Caiaphas Ham said it was an 8-inch blade, Thorp described a brass-backed bowie made by Black with a 14-inch blade and Wellman wrote that it was an 1 1-inch blade, the Warner Bros. team compromised on a 10 1/2-inch blade 2 inches wide and 3/8-inch thick tapering to 3/16 inch at the brass back. Beckman then had production illustrator Philip Jefferies do some concept sketches for approval.

Once accepted, set designer Allen Smith drew up the blueprints for the knife. Besides the brass strip on the blade’s back, Beckman’s design included a lugged German (nickel) silver crossguard, a scalloped brass ferrule encasing the dogbone-shaped wood handle that was lacquered black, and a fancy three-piece brass buttcap.

Feeling that the historic Bowie would want his name somewhere on the knife, Beckman designed the letters “Jim Bowie” in script to be cut out of sheet brass. This was laid over an oval nameplate made of a cream-colored Formica to simulate ivory. A strip of brass bordered the nameplate and the entire ensemble was inlaid in the hahdle on the trademark, or reverse, side of the knife.

Flanking the nameplate were two brass rivet heads, each in the shape of a five-petal rosette. However, only the two rosette rivet heads appeared on the opposite, or obverse, side of the handle, not the nameplate.

Beckman then gave the blueprints to property master Ed Edwards who, in turn, assigned prop maker Arthur Rhoades to execute the finished version. Using automotive spring steel, Rhoades ground out the blade and brazed a strip of brass along the back. A plaster cast of Ladd’s hand was given to the prop maker prior to carving the wooden hand1e. This caused Rhoades to alter the blueprints slightly by lengthening the handle to 5 31/4 inches and the crossguard to 3 1/2 inches for an overall length of 15 5/8 inches, or the entire knife.

Editor’s note: The following appeared in the February 2002 issue of BLADE magazine. Read more from the deep archives of the world’s foremost knife publication in this download of 25 years of back issues.

A Movie that Knows How to Do Swords

When New Line Productions’ The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in a series of three movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, debuts just days from now, blades will be among the stars of the film—and reproductions of three of those pieces are available from United Cutlery.

Moreover, they are but the first in a series of swords United Cutlery (UC) will reproduce in conjunction with the debuts of the Rings sequels in 2002 and 2003.

UC art director Kit Rae oversaw the reproduction of the three swords. It was a dream job for Kit, who’s been a fan of The Lord of the Rings since elementary school.

“It was one of the first fantasy books I read, though I first read The Hobbit [the prequel to the trilogy],” he recalled. “That had more influence over me and the direction with what I do [as a blade designer] than anything I’ve ever read.”

None Shall Pass on Naming These Sweet Swords

The blades of The Fellowship of the Ring are Sting, the short sword of the movie’s hero, Frodo Baggins; Glamdring, the sword of Gandalf the Grey, a powerful wizard and Frodo’s friend and guardian; and The Sword of the Witchking, the blade of one of the film’s villains.

In addition to the three pieces, the movie sequels-one to debut around Christmas 2002, the subsequent one around Christmas 2003-will feature more blades that also will be reproduced by UC, thus setting the stage for all of the pieces to be collectible as a series.

A Precious Partnership: United Cutlery and the Box Office

The Fellowship of the Ring is the latest movie for which UC has either designed and/or reproduced blades, including the three Rambo films, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Total Recall, Mortal Kombat, The Mask Of Zorro and others.

However, Fellowship represents UC’s most ambitious project to date.

“This is the biggest movie license that we’ve ever had,” Rae noted. “We’re planning on making reproductions of nine swords from all three films to be released over the next three years. Three swords have been released this year, with another two to four swords next year. Each will come with a hardwood wall plaque. We may make scabbards for them at a later date.”

Staying True to the Movie

The swords are meticulously reproduced from the description in the script, photos of the actual props and the props themselves as supplied by New Line Productions. There were several copies of each sword made for filming and each was slightly different.

“We have combined those differences into our reproductions while remaining faithful to the original designs,” which were done by the Weta Workshop in New Zealand, Kit said.

Each sword prop has an “aged” or worn look to it in the films, as if it’s been around for many centuries and seen many battles.

“We did our best to copy that look for our reproductions,” Rae maintained. “We want the swords to be as authentic as possible. We’ve found that it’s actually harder to make the swords look aged than to make them look shiny and new. The plaques’ shapes are tailored to each sword and feature screen-printed gold designs that I’ve styled after the look of each character in the film. New Line gave us a great style guide with art from the film to work with.”

No Pressure: 100 Million Books Sold

Having sold over 100 million copies in over 40 languages, Tolkien’s epic trilogy is considered by many to be the greatest fantasy adventure story ever written.

Penned in the 1950s, it chronicles an epic struggle in “Middle-earth” involving humans and a collection of Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves, Wids, Ring Wraiths, Ents, Orcs and other fantastic creatures over possession of a magical ring that can shift the world’s balance of power.

Frodo’s Short Sword: Sting

Frodo, played by Elijah Wood, is a Hobbit and one of many in search of the ring. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s uncle, uses his short sword, Sting, many times in his adventures. In Fellowship, Bilbo (Ian Holm) passes Sting down to Frodo. The piece is magical and, in the movie, its blade glows blue when the evil Orcs are present.

“This is probably the most popular sword in the books,” Rae stressed, “and is probably going to be the one most people will want to own after they see the film.”

Sting’s blade and guard feature runes in the Elven language of Sindarin that translates to, “Maegnas is my name, I am the spider’s bane.”

According to Kit, the runes are true to the actual Sindarin created by Tolkien. Maegnas comes from the Elven word “maeg,” which means sharp. The hardwood handle of UC’s Sting repro is inlaid with an Elven vine design.

“If we hand inlaid the metal just like the real thing, these swords would have been extremely expensive,” Rae related, “so we tried many other processes, including powdered metal and a laser, but finally settled on a special inlay process.”

Scaling a Sword for a Hobbit

Hobbits are about half the size of a man, so several tricks are used in the film to make the human actors look smaller, including making the sword props larger than they appear on screen.

“We had to scale the prop sword, which was 1:1.38 scale, down to the actual size that it appears, on film,” Rae explained. “The prop we had was a full-size sword but on film it appears as a short sword or dagger. We cheated a little and made the blade a bit longer, but otherwise it’s the correct scale.”

The overall length of the UC Sting repro is 22 inches, including a 15-inch blade of 420 J2 stainless steel etched with Elven runes. The metal guard and pommel feature and antique metal finish. Sting comes with a wood plaque silk-screened with Elven runes.

Gandalf’s Glamdring Sword

Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) found his sword, Glamdring, along with Sting in the troll hoard in The Hobbit. Gandalf is an old and powerful wizard and uses a wizard staff to cast his spells, but he pulls Glamdring from its scabbard for battle several times in the film.

Like Sting, Glamdring’s blade glows in the presence of an enemy in the movie. (Editor’s note: the blades of the Sting and Glamdring repros don’t glow.)

“The repro is made with three hollow grinds and the handle is wrapped in leather,” Rae commented.

The metal crossguard and pommel are engraved with Anglo-Saxon-styled runes in the Elven language, which basically say that Glamdring was forged for Turgon, the King of Gondolin.

“Gondolin is only vaguely referred to in the Rings books but is from Tolkien’s earlier work, the Simarillion, a history of Middle-earth,” Kit explained. “That how much research the designers did for the movie. To true Tolkien fans, that will mean a lot.”

Sporting a 36-inch blade of 420 J2, UC’s Glamdring repro is 47 5/8 inches long overall. The hilt is leather wrapped and the metal crossguard and pommel feature an antique finish and engraved Elven runes. The accompanying wood plaque is decorated with silk-screened designs.

The Sword of the Witchking

The Witchking is the leader of the nine Ring Wraiths and uses the Sword of the Witchking, as well as a dagger. The Ring Wraiths are sent to find the ring and return it to their dark master, Sauron (Christopher Lee).

They appear evil in the film, cloaked in black and riding black horses. They are very ancient beings, no longer human. The swords they carry look thousands of years old with corroded and worn blades and handles.

“We have developed a special chemical process to make the blades look like they are 3000 years old, as they appear in the film,” Rae remarked. “The crossguard and pommel have an aged iron look, and the grip is leather wrapped.

“They are huge swords, almost like European two-handed broadswords. This sword is one of the largest we have ever made–over 54 inches long overall.

UC’s Sword of the Witchking repro boasts a 39 3/4-inch blade of 420 52 steel, a leather-wrapped hilt, and metal crossguard and pommel with an antique finish and engraved designs. The accompanying wood plaque is silk-screened with Naszul designs.

Sword Scenes

At press time, Kit had seen a short preview of the movie’s highlights. Though he didn’t want to give too much away lest he spoil the film for BLADE readers, he did reveal a few “sharp teasers.”

He said the most memorable scene with Sting is when Bilbo passes it on to Frodo. However, one scene particularly special to Rae is when Frodo first pulls Sting from its scabbard, the blade pulsating blue due to the proximity of the Orcs.

“It’s something I’ve waited for years to see,” he said, adding that Sting really doesn’t have any big fight scene in the movie other than Frodo using it in the Mines of Moria.

“Sting will have its best scene in the third film,” Rae confided. In the climax of Fellowship, there’s a huge battle in which Gandalf uses Glamdring.

“I can’t give away what happens but Glamdring has a big part in it,” Kit said. As for the Sword of the Witchking, it’s prominent throughout the film in the hands of the Witchking.

Another sword in the film, Narsil, is shown in a flashback that updates viewers on the history of the ring. The blade is shattered and appears later in its broken form.

UC’s “flashback” full-blade repro of Narsil will be available in April 2002, and the repro of the broken Narsil, along with the repros of the Ring Wraith swords, will be available in September 2002. UC also will be offering 1:4 scale collectible miniatures of the movie swords in early 2002.

As with the full-sized swords, UC will be releasing the minis over the span of the three films. UC will release other sword repros from the first sequel in November 2002.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the March 2012 issue of BLADE. Keep exploring BLADE‘s extensive archives with this download of back issues.

Through knives I have met some of the most amazing people, one of whom is actor Johnny Strong.

Last summer I received an e-mail from Johnny. He was interested in my Dragon Waki he had found on Bladeart.com’s website. We exchanged e-mails about his new waki, music and his interest in knifemaking. I learned Johnny is an actor, musician, martial artist and artist. He has been collecting knives since he was 8.

From Collecting to Making Knives

“It was when I was on tour with my band, Operator, that I got serious about collecting custom knives. I would be on the tour bus searching the web for knife dealers,” he said.

After talking with Johnny and learning a little about him, I suggested he visit my shop and hang out for a weekend. He did—and he jumped in with both feet.

We started out forging two blades to shape. Then I taught him grinding and heat treating. The crash course was three long, fun-filled days. As Johnny told BLADE®, “It was a great experience coming to Wally’s and having him share all his knowledge with me. I learned how to manipulate steel and apply these skills to my edged art.”

As soon as Johnny returned home, he ordered a belt grinder, drill press and some steel. In the past year he has created some very original designs. His computer-drawing skills enabled him to develop a practical and aggressive-looking knife style. As he noted, “With my knives, I like to paint in tactical colors.”

Johnny Strong’s Knives

His blades are flat ground from CPM-S35V stainless steel and heat treated by Paul Bos Heat Treating.

Johnny has created some unusual blade finishes with a combination of bead blasting and etching. The blades are ground with a wide secondary bevel that makes his knives razor sharp, similar to those by Shiva Ki.

Johnny hand carved a mold to make his handles. He casts them one at a time. The handle material is an impact/chemical-resistant resin. The cutouts in the handle butts are multi-purpose prying/shaping tools. He also designed and ordered custom-made black titanium handle fasteners. Three of Johnny’s models are the Urban Assassin, Canine Assassin and Combat Assassin.

Respective blade lengths are 6.5, 8.5 and 11 inches. The blade of the Canine Assassin has a tiger-stripe finish, while the Combat Assassin blade features a sawback. Each blade has what Johnny calls his three-edge design, which was inspired by the knife-combat training he has received. All his knives come with custom leather sheaths.

Sinners & Saints

Johnny has starred in Black Hawk Down, The Fast and The Furious, Get Carter, The Glimmer Man and his new (as of the original publication of this article) action movie, Sinners and Saints. Johnny plays the lead role of Sean Riley, a New Orleans detective.

To prepare for one of the movie’s knife fight scenes, Johnny trained with Ron Balicki for three months. Balicki is well known as a practitioner and teacher of the martial arts, and is a student and son-in-law of Dan Inosanto, a legendary martial arts instructor who studied under Bruce Lee. Balicki is also a top Hollywood stuntman and plays the role of Rucker in Sinners and Saints.

Johnny learned both one-handed and two-handed combative drills. In a knife-fighting scene in the movie, Johnny uses an Allen Elishewitz “Phalanx” folder and a Cold Steel Tai Pan dagger. Balicki plays Rucker, a bad guy Johnny’s character must kill. The knife-fighting scene took two days to shoot. Balicki uses a Cold Steel Voyager folder in the scene.

“Ron has a ton of experience and was great to work with,” Johnny noted. “We wanted to make the knife-fighting scene as realistic as possible.”

Johnny has a strong background in martial arts with a black belt in Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, and is training hard to get in shape for his next movie.

Movies, Music and Knives

This past fall I flew down to Johnny’s to help with his knifemaking and have some fun playing music as well.

Music is a big part of Johnny’s life. When not acting, he works on music either for film scenes or his own CDs.

Prior to press time he had released his new album, The War of Art, on iTunes. It features two of his Urban Assassin models silhouetted on the cover. I was asked to bring my guitar so I could play lead on a couple of songs in his studio.

What a blast—mixing knifemaking with recording music! Stay tuned for more movies, music and knives from a very talented guy.

Editor’s note: The following originally appeared in the December 1997 issue of BLADE. Find more from BLADE‘s extensive archive in this download.

Brian Lyttle’s Blade Get Top Billing in Survival Epic, The Edge

Could this be THE movie where a knife will come across as what it truly is, an inanimate yet indispensable tool, instead of a living, breathing, killing demon that irrational crusaders and inept politicians constantly point to as the root of all evil? Let’s hope so.

Meanwhile, The Edge, starring award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins as a man trying to survive in harsh environs with the help of his knife and his ingenuity, may be a movie worth watching not only for the way he employs his blade but because it’s just fine entertainment.

One thing’s certain: Canadian knifemaker Brian Lyttle will be much more than just an interested observer because he made the “steel star” of the film and even appears in the flick as an extra.

The Design

The knife is a large folding hunter designed for the applications to which Hopkins puts it in the movie.

“It’s a gentleman’s piece in an old-time style but large enough for use as a tool to make traps and spears and for other survival needs,” Lyttle (pronounced LITTLE) observed. According to the maker, a voting member of The Knifemakers’ Guild who specializes in highly embellished folders and straight blades, film officials inspected similar knife patterns by assorted U.S. manufacturers to arrive at the piece they wanted.

“They liked big folders with clip-point blades,” he noted.

The result is a knife about 4 1/2 inches long closed with a 3 3/4-inch blade, inch-and-a-half bolsters and an ivory handle. Though Brian specializes in damascus, he used ATS-34 for the blade because movie officials said they wanted a material that wouldn’t stain. The letters “CM” on the knife are the initials of the character played by Hopkins, Charles Morse.

Multiple Models

Lyttle did five knives in all for the movie-four lockbacks and one sliplock. Of the four lockbacks, one is sharp for scenes where cutting is required; one’s dull for scenes where the prevention of any “accidental cutting” is the main concern; one’s a standby; and one’s the presentation piece used in the film. The sliplock appears in an underwater scene where the knife is used to cut a seat belt.

“They didn’t want the performer to have to worry about unlocking the blade while underwater,” Lyttle explained the reason for the sliplock.

He sold four of the knives to movie officials and rented the fifth one to them so he could get it back after filming.

The Knifemaker Steps Into the Movie

Don’t look for Lyttle’s name in the credits at the end of the movie. However, do look for a reference to the maker during the scene where the knife is presented to Hopkins. Inside the blade’s presentation box is a certificate that says, “Lyttle Knife Co.” By the way, that’s the blade Brian rented to the movie and is the one photographed with this story.

Knives are not the only examples of Brian’s work in the film. A skilled engraver, he engraved two watches (a gold one for Hopkins and a stainless steel Omega for co-star Alec Baldwin) and the presentation knife that appears early in the flick.

“The engraving will be easily visible and there’s a special reason for it to be seen,” he winked. “I read the script and it looks like one helluva movie. Hopkins doesn’t do duds.”

A Connection Through Brad Pitt and Legends of the Fall

How did the movie officials learn of Lyttle and his knifemaking? During the filming of Legends Of The Fall, an earlier flick also done in the High River area starring Hopkins and Brad Pitt, Lyttle’s work came to the attention of Pitt.

Pitt visited Lyttle’s home and bought some knives and gave them to some of the movie’s cast, including Hopkins. The same man who put Lyttle in touch with Pitt introduced Brian to an assistant props master.

When it came time to select the knives for The Edge, the assistant props master brought along Lyttle’s knives during a meeting of movie officials, a meeting attended by Hopkins. When Hopkins saw the blades he recognized the maker’s name on them.

Hopkins reportedly said, “They’re damn sharp!”

His reaction no doubt helped sway the movie officials’ decision and Brian had almost every knifemaker’s dream job: making movie blades.

“A Pain in the Neck”

As with most movie relationships, however, it was no picnic for Lyttle. He had to work long hours to get the pieces ready.

“I had three weeks to get the first knife done and I had a knife show to do in-between,” he recalled. “I had to work day and night to meet their deadlines. I had two days off one month and worked some days through midnight until four in the morning.”

And, of course, the movie officials could be a pain in the neck.

“They were very fussy over stuff,” Brian related. “Twelve presentation boxes (for the knife presentation scene) had to be made before they were satisfied with one.”

Worth the Trouble

Still, as almost any knifemaker will tell you, all the toil and trouble is worth it for the dividends such exposure does not only now but down the road, and specifically for Lyttle when people will come up to his table at a knife show and say, “Wasn’t that your knife in that movie with Anthony Hopkins?”

Editor’s note: the following originally appeared in the December 1995 issue of BLADE. Read more from the archives with this collection here.

Mortal Kombat®, based on the video game series of the same name, hit screens in 1995. The story of the knife that appears in the movie is anything but linear. It’s a good example of how things work in Hollywood. 

How the Gil Hibben Raptor for Mortal Kombat was Created

As with many movie knife projects, the Mortal Kombat Raptor materialized not by design but by some behind-the-scenes events that are typical of movie productions. Let me explain.

Originally, the producers of Mortal Kombat asked United Cutlery to design custom knife props for the movie. They wanted a knife with a mermaid handle for a specific scene that was to take place on a wooden ship that takes the characters to the island where the Mortal Kombat tournaments are held.

While on the ship, three heroes and three villains. including the captain, were to fight below decks. I t was during this scene that the captain was supposed to use the mermaid knife. As soon as he was to bring the knife to bear, a blue ball of energy would streak through the passageway and turn into the character of Kayden, Lord of the Dominion of Earth (played by Christopher Lambert).

The knife and everything in Rayden’s path would crackle with energy. There was even talk of having the eyes of the mermaid open as the energy went through the knife. It all sounded fascinating but in the movie knife business strange things happen, and this was no exception.

Evolution of the Mermaid Dagger

In July 1994, Mortal Kombat‘s prop master, Eugene McCarthy, sent United Cutlery a sketch of the handle he wanted for the movie knife. It was based on an existing mermaid dagger he had seen in UC’s catalog. except he wanted it to have a damascus tanto blade. I designed two versions of the knife around his requirements, one with a dagger blade and one with a tanto blade. The handle had to be metal so that the electricity could dance over it. I added a pearl and a seashell to make the handle different from United’s existing mermaid design.

The movie’s officials picked my dagger blade design, and United sent them a handmade blade with a carved wood handle. Since they needed to use rubber knives in the combat scenes for safety reasons, they were going to use the United prototype to make casts for rubber props that would be painted to look like real metal.

At United, we proceeded to make the molds and tooling for the version that we were going to sell to the public.

However, movie officials told us a few months later that the scene had been cut from the film. That kind of thing has happened in other movies we’ve worked on in the past, so we weren’t too upset.

Enter The Raptor Knife

Fortunately, the movie officials told us they had used one of our other knives, the Raptor. in another scene. The director, Paul Anderson, earlier had requested some samples from our existing line to consider for other characters in the movie. Two of the knives were our Gil Hibben Double Shadow and the Raptor.

The Raptor is the 1994 edition of United’s Hibben Knives Custom Design Series. Each year we produce a new knife for the series. Hibben’s knives have been featured in many films, including Rambo III and Under Siege. The Double Shadow has been in several TV shows and films, but to our knowledge the Raptor had not been used in a film yet.

Anderson wanted the character Kano (played by Trevor Goddard) to use the Raptor in a fight scene with Sonya (played by Bridgette Wilson), one of the heroes of the film. In the fight, which is mostly hand-to-hand and martial arts, Kano uses the Raptor but is disarmed in the end. The movie is targeted for kids, so no blood is shed with our knife in the film.

Collector Raptor

We are producing a special Mortal Kombat edition of the Raptor for movie knife collectors. It is the same as the one seen in the film, except that it features a two-color deep etch of the Mortal Kombat logo on the blade and an embossed dragon emblem on the sheath.

Each knife will be individually serial numbered, and will come in a special box featuring movie graphics and photos. We liked the original mermaid knife so much that we produced a modified version of it and added it to our line.

We omitted the damascus-etched blade but otherwise it is the same as the one designed for the film.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the December 1994 issue of BLADE. Read more from BLADE‘s extensive archive here.

Again and again, when knives hit the silver screen, they become characters unto themselves. Some knives take that more literally than others. Here’s one example.

A Movie Knife with Tibetan Influences

The Phurba, the knife from the 1994 motion picture, The Shadow, breaks new ground for movie blades because it’s the first to take advantage of new computer-generated special effects. For the dagger in The Shadow, that means the creation of a living, breathing character, so to speak.

“It growls a couple of times, flies through the air, sprouts legs and even bites Alec Baldwin’s hand,” United Cutlery’s Kit Rae said of the knife. “They used a lot of computer graphics so the face on the handle moves, and the handle twists around.”

Designed for the movie by Joe Nemec III, the Phurba – or “Phurbu” as it is also spelled – is based on an actual Tibetan exorcising knife or “ghost dagger” used by lamas (Buddhist monks) to drive out evil spirits. The Phurba dovetails with the theme of The Shadow since the movie begins in Tibet.

A Three-Sided Blade

According to A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor, by George Cameron Stone, the original Phurbas had, “a three-winged blade and a hilt made up of lamaistic symbols. The pommel is usually a head with three faces crowned, with an animal’s head and neck projecting from the top. Thunderbolts (vajras), dragons and dragon’s heads are frequently present. Usually the blades are made of iron and the hilts of brass; sometimes the entire knife is of brass, and occasionally of wood.”

Nemec couldn’t get an authentic Phurba, so he based the movie knife on research, Rae said. The movie Phurba is true to the original knife in looks, right down to the three-sided blade. The main difference is in the number of faces on the handle, which was sculpted by Nemec. Where authentic Phurbas have three faces, the movie version has but one.

“[The movie’s officials] decided on a single face because it fit in with the idea that the knife was a living character,” Rae said.

Editor’s note: The following appeared in the February 1993 issue of BLADE magazine. You can read more from BLADE‘s extensive archive here.

Knifemakers keep the candle lit for traditions going back generations. It’s no wonder Hollywood would turn to these keepers of history when making movies set in centuries past. 

Winkler: It Started with a Casting Call

Knifemakers Daniel Winkler and Randall King capitalized on being at the right place at the right time to make the knives for 1992’s box-office hit, The Last of the Mohicans.

Winkler, who lives in Boone, North Carolina, (the movie was filmed in the nearby North Carolina mountains) read about a casting call for the movie in a local newspaper. A maker of period pieces for and a participant in mountain man rendezvous, Winkler and his knives would seem a good match for the movie’s mid-18th century time frame, but not even he and his business associate, Karen Shook, could have foreseen the good fortune that would befall them when they met with movie prop master Ron Downing.

“Karen and I introduced ourselves to Downing’s secretary and got a map to his office,” Winkler recalled. “We spoke with Downing and he told us he had a meeting that night with the movie’s director, Michael Mann, at which time he was supposed to show Mann the knives that were to be used in the movie.

“But Downing didn’t have any knives! Karen and I ‘happened’ to have a suitcase full of knives and Downing asked if we would stay for the meeting with Mann. Though no specific knives were agreed upon at the meeting, they decided our knives were appropriate and gave them some idea of what they wanted.”

Designing, and Re-Designing, the Knives

From there, Winkler learned just how tough a job he had taken on. He met with production officials to decide on a specific knife design. From that design Winkler made a knife and brought it to the next production meeting, where movie officials suggested more changes.

“I went to six weeks of meetings and they’d change the knife at every meeting. They continually changed the design until the final knives were an evolution of changes,” Winkler said.
Once the final designs were agreed upon, he had to make three of each knife in case any one was damaged or lost, all of which had to look alike.

“It was difficult to get the same shape bone for each handle,” he noted.

The knife can be seen in the first few seconds of this video clip:

Winkler made the knives for Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his adopted brother, Uncas (Eric Schweig), and the tomahawk for the movie’s villain, Magua (Wes Studi). Magua’s tomahawk was one piece Winkler didn’t have to change. It gets the best close-up shot of any of the movie’s edged pieces early on when Magua attacks one of the English soldiers escorting Cora (Madeleine Stowe) and Alice (Jodhi May) Munro to see their father. Winkler said it was copied from a design on display in a French and Indian War museum in New York.

“(The movie officials) didn’t change the reproduction I made,” Winkler said. “When they got it, they liked it.”

King: It Started with Breakfast

King can thank his father for his opportunity to make the movie knives.

“Jim Morgan, the assistant prop master, ate breakfast where my Dad does every morning,” said King, who lives in Asheville, North Carolina, also near where the movie was filmed. “They got to talking and Dad said I made knives they could use in the movie. Jim said to send me down.”

The next thing King knew, he was making movie knives.

Hiding “Blood Bladders” Inside Knife Handles

The knife King made for Chingachgook (played by Russell Means) is a combination of two knives-an English dagger blade with a handle designed by Downing. Like Winkler, King had to make several copies of the knives.

“Do you know how hard it is to duplicate a piece of stag? I took a moose antler and sawed a piece from it about 2 inches in diameter,” he explained. “I sanded it down to the same shape as the original and took a Dremel tool to cut the lines in it and then burned it in places for the stag effect.”

King also had to duplicate the carved bear-head handle of Magua’s knife, and made two special effects knives for Magua with removable handles that hid “blood bladders,” which squirted fake blood when squeezed for the movie’s action scenes. King also made the knives and sheaths for the movie’s extras.

Winkler said the huge gunstock war club that Chingachgook cames in the movie, as well as the other tomahawks used by movie extras, were made by in-house prop people. A lot of the tomahawks were based on authentic designs illustrated in blackpowder catalogs, he noted.

Working with the Stars

Both makers said they got to meet the stars and were impressed with how cordial they were, King even to the point of having his picture made with Studi and Day-Lewis.

Though neither maker “got rich” from the money they made-King used the proceeds to make himself a new knife shop-both viewed the experience as educational.

“Working on a movie production is not something I would want to do very often,” Winkler admitted. “It was fun but it took a tremendous amount of time. They wanted everything right away. I had to put off some of my custom orders and missed some knife shows to meet their deadlines, and a lot of what I did for them was put on the shelf. We (knifemakers) are suppliers, not actors.”

The makers may not be actors but, in a way, the knives and tomahawk were. And if the past is prologue-as with the Rambo knives that helped boost the knifemaking fortunes of Gil Hibben and the late Jimmy Lile-Winkler and King may reap even more benefit to their knifemaking careers from the pieces for The Last Of The Mohicans.