The Stunt Man (1980)

A fugitive stumbles on a movie set just when they need a new stunt man, takes the job as a way to hide out, and falls for the leading lady.

Director:

Richard Rush

Writers:

Lawrence B. Marcus (screenplay), Richard Rush (adaptation),

Stars:

Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Peter O'Toole	...	Eli Cross
Steve Railsback	...	Cameron
Barbara Hershey	...	Nina Franklin
Allen Garfield	...	Sam (as Allen Goorwitz)
Alex Rocco	...	Police Chief Jake
Sharon Farrell	...	Denise
Adam Roarke	...	Raymond Bailey
Philip Bruns	...	Ace
Charles Bail	...	Chuck Barton
John Garwood	...	Gabe
Jim Hess	...	Henry
John Pearce	...	Garage Guard
Michael Railsback	...	Burt
George Wallace	...	Nina's Father
Dee Carroll	...	Nina's Mother

Storyline

While on the run from the police, Steve Railsback hides in a group of moviemakers where he pretends to be a stunt man. Both aided and endangered by the director (Peter O'Toole) he avoids both the police and sudden death as a stuntman. The mixture of real danger and fantasy of the movie is an interesting twist for the viewer as the two blend in individual scenes.

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Plot Keywords:

stunt | on the run | police | actress | fugitive | 

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Taglines:

"If God could do the things that we can do, he'd be a happy man . . ."

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Drama | Romance | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 February 1981 (France)

Also Known As:

Le diable en boîte

Filming Locations:

Flynn Springs, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,500,000 (estimated)

Gross:

SEK 1,815,060 (Sweden)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Simon Productions, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

131 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ryan O'Neal originally was slated to play the lead, but dropped out and was eventually replaced by Steve Railsback.

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Goofs

When Eli pulls Cameron onto the crane, Eli's arm wraps around him and stays wrapped around him for the rest of Cameron's closeups even though Eli has removed the arm to tell Cameron to look into his camera.

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Quotes

Eli Cross: Ah, welcome to the same picture, Sam.

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Crazy Credits

After the credits end, the movie-within-a-movie director (played by Peter O'Toole) yells, "Sam, rewrite the opening reel! Crush the little bastard in the first act!" And then he laughs during the fade-out.

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Connections

References Dragnet (1951)

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Soundtracks

"Bits & Pieces"
Music by Dominic Frontiere
Lyrics by Norman Gimbel
Sung by Dusty Springfield

User Reviews

Strange film....

When I first saw THE STUNT MAN, I was very enthusiastic about the film and raved about it to anyone who might be interested. I've watched it twice with some friends since, but they weren't very enthusiastic about it, so I can imagine that for many people it won't pay off. It's an ingeniously constructed film that takes some patience and attention to watch. Made by the erratic Richard Rush, this was his pet project for nine years. Although the direction is fine, it's mostly a virtuoso piece of scripting (credited to Rush and Lawrence B. Marcus, based on Paul Brodeur's novel) that makes this such a special film.

A short plot outline: Fugitive Cameron (Railsback) stumbles onto a movie set where megalomaniac director Eli Cross (O'Toole) promises to hide from the police if he replaces his ace stunt man, who got killed earlier on the set in a freak accident while filming a scene. Is Eli trying to capture Cameron's death on film while he is performing a stunt? Reality and imagination soon blur when Cameron grows increasingly paranoid because Eli Cross doesn't let anything or anybody get in the way of shooting his masterpiece the way he wants. He doesn't seem to care about human life, as long as his movie is shot in the way he wants it.

Railsback is an odd choice for the main role but apparently the makers wanted a "low-key" actor for the main part. Barbara Hershey gives a great performance but without Peter O'Toole's tour-de-force performance, I doubt if the film would have worked as well as it did, especially with such a challenging and multi-layered script. He delivers his lines with such vigor that you cannot look away, a grand performance by perhaps my favorite actor off all time. Such a pity that his (later) career mainly consisted of mediocre films at best and some disastrous ones, sadly... I cannot imagine this kind of film being made in Hollywood today and even back then it might be called a small miracle it got made in the first place, let alone released (in fact, it sat on the shelf for two years before release). Perhaps it's all a little too ambitious at times but with a cast like this and such a dazzling script, it's definitely worth the effort.

The DVD-release by Anchor Bay comes with an extra disc loaded with extra's. Lots of interviews, including one with O'Toole and a very peculiar - almost two-hour (!) - documentary about the making of the film, presented by Rush himself, almost worth seeing in itself.

Camera Obscura - 8/10