Quicksand
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Quicksand is a colloid hydrogel consisting of fine granular material (such as sand, silt or clay), and water.
In fiction
People falling into (and, unrealistically, being submerged in) quicksand or a similar substance is a trope of adventure fiction, notably in movies. According to Slate, this gimmick had its heyday in the 1960s, when almost 3% of all films showed someone sinking in mud, sand, or clay. For instance, T.E. Lawrence's servant boy Daud dies in quicksand in a scene in the 1962 movie, Lawrence of Arabia. Actor Al Mulock's character dies by falling into a quicksand pit in the 1959 adventure Tarzan's Greatest Adventure. In 1960's Tarzan the Magnificent Gordon Scott and Jock Mahoney hide from John Carradine in a pit of African Black Quicksand. The proliferation of quicksand scenes in movies has given rise to an Internet subculture scene dedicated to the topic.
Television programs of the 1950s–1960s likewise portrayed the perils of quicksand in dramatic fashion. In the Western television program The Rifleman, for example, two teens are portrayed venturing into a swamp and sinking in quicksand up to their necks, frantically yelling for help until rescued by the title character, Lucas McCain, in the episode "Old Tony," which ended the series' final season in 1963 (episode #168).
In an episode of Batman, the Dynamic Duo fall into quicksand, and Batman (more or less correctly) instructs Robin to "stay perfectly still," whereupon they sink to an equilibrium level (implausibly just below the lower lip).
One of the earliest popular fictional references to quicksand occurs in Les Misérables, wherein Victor Hugo dedicates two chapters to the subject in volume Jean Valjean, Book Third--Mire, but Soul, Chapter V, For Sand as well as Woman There Is a Finesse which Is Perfidy, and Chapter VI, The Fontis. Chapter V relates supposed actual incidents of individuals and animals sinking to their death in quicksand on the seashore, while chapter VI describes Jean Valjean valiantly carrying the body of Marius above his head as he wades through a face-high quicksand pit in the Paris sewers. In Robert Louis Stevenson's Pavilion in the Links, quicksand plays an important role.
The Tamil-language movie Mella Thirandhathu Kadhavu uses quicksand as a major plot point in the flashback parts of the protagonist's story. Quicksand also features heavily in the Bengali novel Chorabali (Bengali for "quicksand"), in the Byomkesh Bakshi detective series by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay.
In Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles, Bart and Charlie ride a handcar into quicksand and are almost submerged. The cart is pulled out by Taggart and Lyle, completely ignoring Bart and Charlie, who are forced to escape on their own.
As late as the 1980s, the film Southern Comfort showed a character named Stuckey (Lewis Smith) as a National Guardsman out on bivouac with fellow soldiers when the team becomes lost in the Louisiana Bayou. Stuckey is swallowed up quickly after falling into a quicksand pit as a helicopter is searching for him.
