From "The Annotated Poe," edited by Kevin J. Hayes: "Adapting Poe's tale as 'The Pit and the Pendulum' (1913), director Alice Guy sought to make this scene [the swarming of the rats over the prisoner in the dungeon] as realistic and as true to the original as she could. Consequently, she tied the arms and legs of Darwin Kerr, her leading man, with rope, smeared with food, and then filmed the scene as real rats crawled over the actor's body and slowly ate through the ropes. Once the ropes broke, Kerr jumped to his feet, swearing there would be no retakes!"