This was the title of an article published in the May 1, 1922 edition of the San Jose Evening News. The incident happened on Bear Creek Road, then just a single track, close to Boulder Creek. A motorist was on a pleasant Sunday afternoon “jaunt” when he rounded a sharp corner in the road. Sounding his horn to indicate his presence he heard no one coming the opposite direction and so “spun around the turn.” What a surprise when he ran into the rear end of an elephant. The elephant, equally astounded, turned and saw the auto. It was so shocked it immediately began to run towards Boulder Creek.
Now the motorist thought that the elephant might be lost, perhaps from a travelling circus. He decided to follow it hoping to claim a reward for its recovery. However, the elephant headed towards an open field where a movie company was filming. The director explained that the elephant was “trained and very tame. It was allowed to roam at will between sets, coming for its act at the director’s whistle.”
The movie being filmed was Soul of the Beast, directed by John Griffith Wray and staring beautiful Madge Bellany as an abused circus performer, Cullen Landis as her would be suitor, Noah Beery as a lecherous villain, and circus elephant Oscar (also known as Anna May or Mae) as the hero.
Pictured here is Madge Bellamy with Anna May and Cullen Landis on his knees.
In Bellamy’s autobiography entitled A Darling of the Twenties, she said, "A nice thing that happened during the filming of the picture was the bond established between the elephant, and me. Whenever I visited her thereafter in the Los Angeles Zoo, she seemed to know when I entered the grounds and would begin the trumpet."
The movie culminates with the villain being chased into the San Lorenzo River at Junction Park, as seen in the image below. He tries to escape by climbing the rocks, but Anna May, who is in pursuit, wades into the river, fills her truck with water, and aims it at Berry, who falls from the cliff face into the river.
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