Word: stunt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Vegas, Sept. 15. The sign outside one of the more celebrated spas on the strip proudly trumpets TODAY! GARY WELLS JUMPS CAESARS PALACE FOUNTAINS. So he does, and the result fully lives up to the name of the stunt's sponsor, ABC's thrill-pandering series That's Incredible! While gawkers gawked and cameras whirred, Wells, a professional stunt man, gunned a motorcycle up a ramp, sailed over the water fountains outside the showplace, but crashed on his descent. Result: a ruptured aorta and fractures of the pelvis, thigh and lower...
...That's Incredible!, which is considering if and when it should air its footage of Wells' jump, the stunt was just one of many heart stoppers that have helped the show pull almost a third of the viewing audience in its Monday night prime-time slot. It was also the third injury to have occurred in filming for the show. Another stunt man, attempting to jump in the air while two cars sped under him, nearly ripped off his foot when it caught in a windshield; he had to have reconstructive surgery and is still in serious condition...
...story concerns Lucky Cameron (Steve Railsback), on the run from the police, who stumbles upon a movie company on location. Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole) is a fine parody of an energetic, egomaniacal director. He offers Lucky a change of identity on high-risk terms: take over the stunt man's job recently vacated by a chap who may or may not have been sent to his doom by the director's pursuit of a terrific death scene. In return the young man will get protection from the police. Cross is as good as his word...
...journey. It is a trip of constantly shifting perceptions and sharply etched satirical sketches of movie types (the anxious writer, the stars in constant need of reassurances and some good lighting, the crew members variously laconic, envious and nymphomaniacal). It is also a carnival of bang-up stunt scenes. which Richard Rush presents with marvelous subtlety. They do not look like the finished product, but neither are they like raw footage: they have the half-polished air of a rough cut. Above all, there is Peter O'Toole, doing his John Huston imitation, but putting a lacy edging...
...reasons best understood by the wee ones who make these decisions. The Stunt Man has languished on the shelf for more than a year, passed by all the major distributors. Now, it is being booked catch-as-catch-can across the country by its makers, and it deserves to be caught. It reminds one not so much of other movies about moviemaking as it does of those blends of action and philosophy that the French intellectual adventurers used to put out. It may not be André Malraux, but it certainly is on the level of Remain Gary...