Trujillo was assassinated on Friday night

Chirimoya

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News just in:


Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo died in a hail of bullets as he was being driven down Santo Domingo's seafront avenue on Friday night.


They had to shoot several times before they got it right.



I am, of course, referring to the filming of La Fiesta del Chivo, which is currently under way in Santo Domingo. They used Avenida Espa?a as the location for the assassination scene, rather than the real location on the Malecon. Something to do with the skyline.

Mr Chiri, who supplied the car - a Chevy Bel Air 1957 - was on the set and took some photos. I'm e-mailing them to Robert so he can add them to the thread.
 

sweetdbt

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Chirimoya said:
News just in:


Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo died in a hail of bullets as he was being driven down Santo Domingo's seafront avenue on Friday night.


They had to shoot several times before they got it right.



I am, of course, referring to the filming of La Fiesta del Chivo, which is currently under way in Santo Domingo. They used Avenida Espa?a as the location for the assassination scene, rather than the real location on the Malecon. Something to do with the skyline.

Mr Chiri, who supplied the car - a Chevy Bel Air 1957 - was on the set and took some photos. I'm e-mailing them to Robert so he can add them to the thread.

Pretty cool. I trust those flying sparks were carefully executed FX and mr. Chiris classic BelAir is unharmed!
 

Chirimoya

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Thanks Robert for posting the pics. They used replica panels for the bullet holes. The car will return to us in mint condition - we hope!

BTW the photos were taken on Thursday night, but filming continued last night as well.
 

Yan-Yan

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Wao, how nice!... It's good to see Trujillo being killed again! ;)

Thanks for sharing Chiri.
 

Chirimoya

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Love that car!

It's a beauty, isn't it?


Do you have any other photos from the set?

Mr Chiri took some last weekend at the National Palace when they were filming the scene where Cabral takes the young Urania to a banquet. I'll see if he can dig out a couple for us here.
 

Chirimoya

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Thanks for posting the photos, Robert.

They show the car after the event. It's about to be restored to its former glory. Soon to be seen driving around town, if all goes well!

PS No photos of the banquet, sorry.
 
Apr 26, 2002
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Compare to Photo of Actual Car

Which can be found at http://pro.corbis.com/search/searchFrame.asp (enter "Rafael Trujillo Car" into the search box). I don't think El Jefe's was a '57 (though '57 was the hansomnest Chevy ever). Also, the garish winged dragon hood ornament and hood-mounted double horns are missing. Unusual for Hollywood, I think Trujillo's real car got it worse than the one in the filming.
 
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Lambada

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Chiri,
You look so serene in pic 3 & happy in pic 4 to be sitting in a car riddled with bullet holes! Where is the bathos? Where is the drama, I ask myself? Almost should have a caption 'Happy Brit tourist drives streets of Santo Domingo, DR'. Go on, sell it to the Sun or Daily Mail & see if they fall for it! ;)
 
Sep 20, 2003
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Winged dragon hood ornament? I've never heard of that being on Trujillo's car. (I believe you.) Was that something Trujillo ordered made for the car or was that a dealer option?

Does anyone have a photo of the hood ornament up close?

You're right, El Jefe's car was shot up much, much worse.
 
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Chirimoya

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Porfio_Rubirosa said:
Which can be found at http://pro.corbis.com/search/searchFrame.asp (enter "Rafael Trujillo Car" into the search box). I don't think El Jefe's was a '57 (though '57 was the hansomnest Chevy ever). Also, the garish winged dragon hood ornament and hood-mounted double horns are missing. Unusual for Hollywood, I think Trujillo's real car got it worse than the one in the filming.
The art dept researched the original fairly well. There was some discussion about the horns and dragon, I believe. Every source I've read mentions it being a 1957.

I think there was a second car in far worse condition used for the later scenes. More than one person has commented on the 'painted' bullet holes: we'll have to see how it all ends up looking when the film comes out.

Lambada said:
You look so serene in pic 3 & happy in pic 4 to be sitting in a car riddled with bullet holes! Where is the bathos? Where is the drama, I ask myself? Almost should have a caption 'Happy Brit tourist drives streets of Santo Domingo, DR'. Go on, sell it to the Sun or Daily Mail & see if they fall for it!
If I had thought about it I would have dressed up for the occasion: lipstick and a 50s style headscarf. Problem is, I always end up looking more like Hilda Ogden than Ava Gardner!

I don't think I'll take up your suggestion. The last time a member of my family appeared in the Sun was in 1979 when they inaugurated the nudist beach in Brighton. My cousin appears on the front page in her birthday suit. That was 25 years ago!
 

Chirimoya

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PS The hood ornament was a swan, not a dragon. It's possible the second car had it and the editing will take car of this.

Replicas of the horns were mounted on the car for the filming.
 
Apr 26, 2002
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Chirimoya said:
Every source I've read mentions it being a 1957.
I think you're right. I let this source (http://www.normangall.com/dominicanr_art2.htm) rather than my knowledge of cars mislead me. The '59 Chevolet referenced in the article was dramatically different in appearance.

I must say, by sticking with the '57 over newer models, Trujillo, for perhaps the only time, exhibited some real style.

Always wondered why he didn't have a Cadillac, though.
 

Spirit7

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It was a 57 Chevy with big horns in the front.

I was 12 years old when Trujillo was assasinated and clearly remember the car being a 57 pretty much the same color combination as the one in the pics. There were a lot more bullet holes in the actual car.

Trujillo had plenty of heavy limousines of all types but on these weekly trips to his hometown to see his mistresses he would go in a regular car with a chauffeur and no escort. Pretty dumb even though he had total control of the entire country.

I remember growing up in La Vega and his occasional pass-by my house, right on the main highway, with motorcycle escorts and big heavy cadillac limousines with the big horns and huge red light with siren. My mom would go in front of the house to wave at him and he would wave back but my dad, a Fidel Castro admirer who would stay up listening to Radio Rebelde from Cuba, despised Trujillo and got angry with my mom for waving and applauding him when he went by.
 
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On the photography web page provided on this thread i found a small note(which i can't locate now) that said Trujillo's car had 60 bullet holes in it.

After the Trujillo family fled the country, the car was bought by a retired army sergeant that had the car painted blue and turned into a taxi cab.

Years later, the car was scrapped.

Berhard Diedreich's book, "Death of the Goat" has many details on the car.
 

Golo100

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I didn't see the movie, but

Unless the movie goes like this, it is utterly fiction:
Trujillo, a man with guts, unlike some of today's over-protected government officials, would normally visit his mistresses alone with his driver and no escorts. His gun and balls gave him protection. Government traitors like Imbert Barreras and Antonio De La Maza knew this. They planned to intercept El Jefe on one of those nights. Imbert Barreras approached his car and shot from the window with a shotgun and wounded Trujillo mortally in his shoulder. The wound was big enough to bleed Trujillo to death. But not without Trujillo putting up a fight. He fought till the end by himself, as his driver was incapacitated. He fired as many shots as were fired to him. When he finally fell, Barreras gave him the final shot in the head.
None of these so called heroes would have been courageous enough to take on a head on duel with Trujillo the old way. Trujillo would have killed them one by one with just his courage and "bad attitude". It took a cowardly attempt to kill him. Trujillo was no saint, but any one of our last three presidents was more corrupt. With the exception of Juan Bosch, I would take Trujillo over any of our past presidents in the last 40 years.
TW
 
Apr 26, 2002
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Golo100 said:
With the exception of Juan Bosch, I would take Trujillo over any of our past presidents in the last 40 years.
Spoken like someone who still loves his caudillos. But, despite the well-known caudillo affection in the DR, I'm not sure I know of anyone other than Golo who loved both Trujillo and Bosch.