Veteran prop master turned down 'Rust' film: 'An accident waiting to happen'

LOS ANGELES — Neal W. Zoromski has spent three decades in Hollywood, working on movies big and small, but never on a western. So he was thrilled last month when he was asked to join the crew of an Alec Baldwin film in New Mexico.

The veteran prop master immediately told "Rust" production managers that he was interested in the job that would give him responsibility for the accoutrements of the Old West. Pistols, rifles, wagons, saddles and flour sacks were needed to re-create 1880s Kansas for Baldwin, who was playing a grizzled outlaw named Harland Rust.

But during four days of informal discussions with film managers, Zoromski said he got a "bad feeling."

"There were massive red flags," he said in an interview Sunday with the Los Angeles Times.

He said he felt that "Rust" was too much of a slapdash production, one with an