The Stunt Man (1980) – through the looking glass …

The Stunt Man

Sam! Rewrite the opening reel! Crush the little bastard in the first act!

– Peter O'Toole, as Eli Cross.

 

I love movies, so a movie that also involves the movie-making process in the plot, is a definite draw.

The Stunt Man (1980) was directed by Richard Rush, released in the United States on June 27, 1980, and adapted from the novel of the same title, by Paul Brodeur, published in 1970.

The story is a combination of genres: action, drama, crime, and offbeat comedy.

Cameron (Steve Railsback), is a wanted man, a fugitive on the run from the police and FBI, for a crime that remains unspecified until later in the story.

Narrowly evading capture at a roadside diner, he stumbles onto a movie set, where a World War I battle scene is being filmed on the beach.

He merges with the crowd, as we hear an excerpt from Dusty Springfield’s song Bits and Pieces, tipping us off that the fugitive and viewer are now “in a world where nothing is what it seems”.

Cameron’s next attempt to put distance between himself and the pursuing law results in the death of the movie stuntman, Burt (Michael Railsback).

As Cameron runs again, he’s seen by the movie director, Eli Cross (Peter O’Toole), hovering next to the bridge in his chopper.

Burt’s death puts them both in a dangerous situation: if the police discover Burt’s death, they will close down the movie set and Eli will be arrested.

Cameron will also be caught.

They strike up an uneasy pact: Eli will provide Cameron refuge and sanctuary within the movie set, so long as Cameron takes Burt’s place as the stunt man.

Cameron accepts because he has no other choice.

Local police chief, Jake (Alex Rocco), is hanging around constantly looking for Eli to make a slip.

Cameron has an intimate relationship with Nina Franklin (Barbara Hershey), the lead actress on the movie.

There is a revealing moment to the almost surreal atmosphere and collective make-believe mindset of the world Cameron finds himself embroiled in.

As he carries Nina out of the water, and she makes believe that she is being rescued, Cameron remarks that it’s just like in the movies.

Nina replies: “I am the movies.”

The romance between Cameron and Nina sparks jealousy in Eli; he was once in a brief relationship with Nina, adding more tension to the suspicion he and Cameron have for each other.

There are several impressive set pieces to this movie.

In particular Cameron’s first stunt involving a jump between two high buildings.

Not a job for anyone suffering from vertigo.

The stunt includes a rooftop chase and a fall into an enemy occupied brothel.

Stunt men run, tumble over each other, and fall from the roof, in a long and skillfully filmed scene achieved in a pre-CGI age.

Cameron got more than he bargained for.

Already feeling trapped and afraid that his cover will be blown, Cameron’s paranoia is compounded with fear that the director may be psychotic, unconcerned about safety, and will stop at nothing to get his movie completed – even if it means Cameron will also die during a perilous stunt.

Or maybe it’s Eli’s way of getting rid of Cameron, so he could have a second chance of being with Nina.

Cameron refuses to divulge what his crime is, and Eli uses this during an argument with Nina, when he expresses remorse about losing her:

“Jesus Christ, woman! Can’t you see the man is reeking with blood?!”

Steve Railsback is effectively nervous and twitchy as Cameron, a fish out of water, feeling cornered and paranoid.

It’s easy to empathize and share his bewilderment, as the stunts he performs become increasingly dangerous.

There are moments that surprise the viewer as much as they do Cameron, as stunts are replayed from a different angle, revealing the cameras and crew, and the movie-effects tricks.

But this is easily Peter O’Toole’s movie.

In a role that seems written specifically for him, he commands every scene, just as his character, Eli Cross, commands the movie set.

The best lines are reserved for Eli, as he uses his fast-talking skills of persuasion on Cameron:

“Did you not know that King Kong the first was just three-foot-six-inches tall?

He only came up to Fay Wray’s belly button.

If God could do the tricks that we can do, He’d be a happy man!”

Eli is tyrannical, grandiose, and hilarious.

He can be comical and cruel, particularly in his manipulation of Nina, using an embarrassing incident during the showing of dailies to evoke a genuine reaction of shame he can capture in a scene.

Dominic Carmen Frontiere’s music score is both majestic and light-hearted, adding a fun and at times epic feel to the events.

The scene with Eli Cross arriving on set, stepping off the chopper, makes him seem like a giant walking the earth.

In Eli’s mind, as the director, he is a giant among men, and the movie set is his world, a realm he rules, with everyone there to follow and serve as he commands.

When not hovering over them in his chopper, he’s above them on his camera crane, or standing on bridges, a king overseeing his kingdom.

The director as dictator, or maybe even a demon – as the poster art suggests:

The stunts and action scenes are impressive.

The script, by Lawrence B. Marcus, is intelligent and humorous.

The uneasy partnership between Cameron and Cross is well developed, with smart and funny interchanges between Eli and his crew, particularly his lead actor, Raymond Bailey (Adam Roarke), assistant, Ace (Philip Bruns), hair stylist, Denise (Sharon Farrell) and long-suffering writer, Sam (Allen Garfield).

On a trivia note: the clip of the final stunt, when the Duesenberg car hits the water, was included in the opening credit montage of the TV show, The Fall Guy (1981-86), starring Lee Majors.

Keep watching after the end credits roll, to hear Eli Cross’ final hilarious declaration.

Among my other “movies about making movies” favorites are:

Hooper (1978), Blow Out (1981), The Hard Way (1991), Ed Wood (1994), Adaptation (2002), and The Disaster Artist (2017).

I also recommend director Richard Rush’s earlier hilariously off-beat action comedy: Freebie and the Bean (1974), starring James Caan, Alan Arkin, Loretta Swit, Valerie Harper, Alex Rocco, Mike Kellin, and Paul Koslo.

One of the best in the cop buddy movie genre.

Similarly, Freebie and the Bean didn’t do well on its release, but has since gained much-deserved admiration.

The Stunt Man is a movie within a movie, a story within a story, fiction within fiction.

Superbly shot, entertaining and unforgettable.

A multi-layered story that improves with repeat viewings, and a must-see for any movie-buff who, like me, loves movies.

Eli Cross perfectly sums up the movie world to Cameron and the viewer, as if Eli is both director and usher, standing outside the cinema auditorium, beckoning us all into his world:

“That door is the looking glass … and inside it is Wonderland.”

Jaws (1975) - the thing about a shark …

Movies, in general, are just movies – nothing more.

You see them – you forget them.

However, some movies are so good – you never forget them; they stay with you forever and get better every time you watch them.

Jaws (1975) has always had a special place in my heart.

It was the movie that made me fall in love with movies.

During my early teens, it was the first movie I saw on rental VHS video cassette.

When I was fifteen, I bought a four-hour video cassette and recorded Rollerball and Jaws when they were screened on TV.

Already a dyed in the wool movie fanatic, it felt great to have my own copies of two movies I love, and that video cassette was like gold to me – a treasure!

Both movies were released in 1975 – a great year for movies – and I will post a blog on Rollerball in the future.

I went through the usual precautions concerning prized video cassettes: broke the small, square plastic tab on the base of the cassette, preventing accidental erasure … affixed a label to the base of the cassette, on which I wrote ROLLERBALL & JAWS in bold, felt-tip-pen capitals … then hoarded it away in my bedroom.

Unless I was watching some other late-night movie on TV, then the double-feature of Rollerball and Jaws was my late-Saturday-night-into-the-early-hours-of-Sunday-morning treat.

During that period, settling to watch movies was something of a ceremony:

More coals on the fire to keep the room temperature comfortable … check!

Draft-excluder covering the gap at the bottom of the lounge door … check!

TV angle realigned, parallel with the rug in front of the fire … check!

Seat cushions banked with my bed pillow against the base of the couch … check!

Fresh mug of coffee … check!

Snacks … check!

Me laid on rug … check!

Cushions behind my shoulders … check!

Pillow behind my head … check!

TV screen perfectly positioned with my direct line of view … check!

TV remote strategically placed to the right of my coffee mug … check!

The ceiling light and corner lamps out; room lit only by the glowing coals and TV screen … check!

My German Shepherd dog stretched out asleep on the couch behind me … check!

Yep! You read that right! I was laid on the floor; my dog was on the couch. I spoil my pets.

Over the years, I’ve watched both those movies less frequently, but each new viewing has always felt like a special event and my appreciation for them has never waned.

I’ll focus on Jaws for this blog.

Jaws was released in the United States on June 20, 1975.

The plot, based on the novel by Peter Benchley, is simple: the locals in the summer resort of Amity Island have their livelihoods – along with their lives! – threatened when a Great White Shark makes a smorgasbord of the swimmers.

Police Chief, Brody (Roy Scheider), Oceanographic expert, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and shark fisherman, Quint (Robert Shaw), eventually team up and set out on Quint’s vessel, the Orca, to hunt down the shark and kill it.

There is so much to love and admire about this movie: superb script, beautiful cinematography, fully developed characters, suspense and humor.

I can’t choose one particular favorite scene – I love the entire movie and can’t find a fault with it.

From the classic opening, starting with those marine sounds, leading into John Williams’ now timeless and brilliant theme music:

Beach party tragedy:

Official report:

MAYOR VAUGHN:

Martin, it's all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, "Huh? What?" You yell shark, we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.

The moment of shock, zoom shot:

HOOPER:

This was no boat accident!

Dinner conversation:

Covert autopsy:

Sunken boat:

MAYOR VAUGHN:

(pointing to the billboard as he talks to BRODY):

Brody! Sick vandalism! That is a deliberate mutilation of a public service message. Now, I want those little paint-happy bastards caught and hung up by their Buster Browns!

Author, Peter Benchley’s cameo as the news reporter:

Estuary victim:

Working out differences and setting terms:

Gone fishing:

Keeping the chum line going:

False alarm:

BRODY:

"Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead. Come on down here and chum some of this shit.

BRODY:

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

The first barrel:

Quint’s story:

HOOPER:

You were on the Indianapolis?

BRODY:

What happened?

QUINT:

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte. Just delivered the bomb – the Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen-footer. You know how you know that, when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week.

Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle, like you see in the calendar named: The Battle of Waterloo, and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away.

Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya, right into your eyes. You know, the thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living ... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then ... ah, then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin', the ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they ... rip you to pieces.

You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour.

On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Bosun’s mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. He bobbed up and down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist.

Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us ... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened ... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again.

So, eleven-hundred men went into the water; three-hundred-and-sixteen men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

NOTE:

Although the story of Jaws is fiction, Quint’s story of the USS Indianapolis is rooted in fact.

Stacy Keach and Richard Thomas starred in a 1991 TV movie of the story: Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

Jack L. Chalker’s fictionalized novel of the event: The Devil’s Voyage, was published in 1981.

In 2016, Mario Van Peebles directed USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage, starring Nicolas Cage, Thomas Jane, Tom Sizemore, and James Remar.

Shark attack:

The shooting stars in this scene were real:

Man against shark:

Final battle:

BRODY:

Smile, you son of a bitch!

For me, Jaws remains the best of the genre.

The sequels to Jaws didn’t come near the magic of the original and sank (pun intended) into the depths of the cinematic pit of movies so bad – they are woefully BAD!

There have been numerous other shark-themed movies, not connected to the Jaws franchise: Open Water … Shark Night … Deep Blue Sea … Red Water … Bait … The Reef … The Shallows …

Oh … yeah … and let’s not forget the cinematic classic that is Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus … and I still can’t believe I actually sat through it!!!

… but I have yet to see another shark-themed movie as exciting or entertaining as Steven Spielberg’s 1975 original: Jaws.

If you’re ever thinking of buying a suitable vessel for a shark fishing trip … always opt for the bigger boat!