The Stunt Man
Directed by Richard Rush
Written by Lawrence B. Marcus, adapted by Richard Rush from a novel by Paul Brodeur
1980/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental
Eli Cross: Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray’s belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he’d be a happy man!
This was very interesting for its backstage view of stunt work and special effects. The plot didn’t really hold together for me though.
Peter O’Toole plays Eli Ross, a manipulative almost demonic film director. He is making an action-packed World War I movie full of explosives and dangerous stunt work. His latest planned stunt worked disastrously ending in the stunt man’s drowning.
Eli had been overseeing the scene in a helicopter and spots fugitive from justice Cameron (Steve Railsback) committing one more crime. Eli is short a stunt man and decides making Cameron a substitute is the best punishment for him. Thus the untrained Cameron is forced to do the riskiest scariest stunts. By the end he has fallen in love with lead actress Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey).
The problem I had with this movie is that Railsback portrays Cameron (well I admit) as a total psychopath but by the end I think we’re supposed to sympathize with him and this was not really prepared for. I thought O’Toole could have been been better utilized. But it is fun to see all the heavy equipment and various tricks used in making a combat film realistic.
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