The below scene is from Swiss Miss (’38), a Laurel and Hardy feature set in Switzerland. Stan and Ollie’s challenge is to somehow move a heavy piano across a flimsy foot bridge above a deep gorge. The problem is a gorilla (played by Charles Gemora, Hollywood’s go-to gorilla guy at the time) getting in the way.
A frayed bridge rope gives way and both the piano and the gorilla fall several hundred feet to the flatlands below. The sound of the piano smashing into shards is 100% believable…you can hear the crashing, calamitous thong of the metal piano strings, plus the sound lingers for two or three seconds. Brilliant work — the foley guy deserves a special posthumous award. (The piano slams into terra firm around the 3:58 mark.)
The gorilla isn’t killed. He re-appears at the end of the film with a head bandage and walking crutches.
Also: It seems as if the Swiss Miss dps (Norbert Brodine, Art Lloyd) shot an actual piano or crate of some kind falling a thousand feet or so. It’s clearly not a visual effect. How did they manage this? Where did they shoot it? Helicopters weren’t all that accessible until the early 1940s.