The Stunt Man (1980)

At the time Peter O'Toole was Academy Award nominated as Best Actor, for his portrayal of one-step-above-God-himself, Eli Cross in The Stunt Man, my movie going experience was limited to The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, Mary Poppins, and some post pubescent indulgences into the realm of Flint, Matt Helm, and James Bond.

Through the magic of video I was able to see Richard Rush's wonderful black comedy- And have never tired of it.

Had Mr. O'Toole and The Stunt Man not run headlong into the likes of Raging Bull, and Robert De Niro, I venture to say it would have garnered WINS, not just NOMINATIONS from the Academy that year.

Rent itÂ…and while you're at it reach for `My Favorite Year' and make it a Peter O'Toole double feature.

You will not be disappointed.

Fmovies: This movie is a slightly surreal comedy about moviemaking. It's told with the perspective (if not always from the point of view) of a young fugitive who wanders onto the set and gets hired due to various complications. The movie people all seem larger than life to the fugitive, and since he's a little paranoid anyway, their motives seem complex and suspect. Peter O'Toole gives his usual performance, and he's perfect here as the flamboyant director (he must have had a great time sending up some blowhards of his past with this role). Steven Railsback does his usual disoriented guy on the edge, and he does it with a rather touchingly naive quality this time. Barbara Hershey is the leading lady love interest, delivers an intelligent and understated performance, and is appropriately bewitchingly beautiful.

Roger Ebert didn't like this movie, but he got confused into thinking that it was something deeper than a comedy. It's about as deep as "Get Shorty", but with a completely different feel.

The movie holds up pretty well, although the special effects look a little clunky sometimes, and I remember thinking they were pretty good when I saw the movie in its initial release. But the clunkiness isn't really distracting, and since the movie's attempts to "deceive" are all firmly tongue-in-cheek, it doesn't hurt.

I will right off admit that this film is not my type of thing. I watched it because I'm a huge fan of Peter O'Toole's. I found it difficult to follow and disjointed despite some really fascinating scenes and some very good acting.

Steve Railsback plays a Vietnam vet named Cameron who escapes the police after he is caught for attempted murder. He crosses a bridge and dodges away from an old car that is out of control. The car disappears. Later on, he encounters a film about World War I being shot on the beach. The director is Eli Cross (O'Toole) who offers Cameron a job as a stunt man. It turns out that the stunt man was in the old car and drove the car off of the bridge as part of a scene being filmed, and drowned. The police are sniffing around, so O'Toole introduces Cameron as Burt, the missing stunt man, and the rest of the cast and crew play along.

Cameron learns a lot about stunts (as do we) and he falls for the film's leading lady (Barbara Hershey) who at one time was involved with Eli. Cameron over time becomes increasingly paranoid and believes that the manipulative, kind of crazy Eli wants to kill him.

O'Toole, Railsback, and Hershey are all excellent -- we first see Hershey in an old lady mask and clothing. Throughout the film, she is beautiful, silly, and flighty as Nina Franklin, and intense and committed as the character Nina plays. O'Toole is madcap, and doesn't seem to care what happens to anyone as long as he gets the shot he wants, and one can see how Cameron would be unclear about his motives.

The print I saw didn't look particularly good - I wonder about the budget for this film. I think a good deal of the budget went to O'Toole and some of those amazing stunts, as the film has a lot of TV actors in it -- all good, but TV actors nevertheless: Alex Rocco, Sharon Farrell, Allen Garfield.

This film is a little hard to follow, but it's a good one about the value of perception and how it can change from person to person. Also, the ending is very satisfying.

The Stunt Man fmovies. I was prepared to dislike this film when I heard that it was going to replace the incredible "Empire Strikes Back." What I got was shock. Here was something different, something innovative in style and technique, something amazing. Vader and his gang were soon forgotten as I got caught up in the suspense (Will Cameron survive?), the comedy, the incredible dialogue, and one of the best soundtracks ever put on film. I fell in love with Barbara Hershey all over again after too long an absence. O'Toole was Oscar-worthy, and robbed of one. Richard Rush pulled a one-of-a-kind out of his hat, ala "Citizen Kane." He has never been near this level before or since. This must be watched several times in order to see and hear everything. There are so many subtle touches that are brilliant that I still find them 20 years and 30+ viewings later. A must for anyone who wants to know good film great. No doubt about this one. A "10" out of "10." No film was better(or as good) in the 1980's (or 90's for that matter.)

I won't carry on about the plot of this marvelous flick since it's already been adequately limned, but do let me emphasize a few points that have been kind of grayed out in other comments. The score by Frontiere is outstanding, from the up-tempo opening blast to the final credits. It's not only unnerving but vertigo inducing, so it supplements the plot perfectly. The photography is outstanding as well, the colors appallingly vivid, as in an MGM cartoon, which in this context is most apt. (It is a mystery/comedy/thriller/philosophical disquisition, after all.) The Hotel Coronado in San Diego has never looked quite so palatial, not even in "Some Like it Hot."

Rush's direction boggles the mind, to coin a phrase. The film begins with a helicopter. A hand pops out of the helicopter and drops a half-eaten apple. The apple bounces on the hood of a parked car. We follow without comment the apple, the line of events, and it turns out to be what gets the story moving.

There are multiple very strange touches throughout. As a movie star myself, having been a faceless extra in half a dozen films, I have to add that movies are simply not shot this way. An expensive and dangerous (and ultimately lethal) stunt is performed as we enter the actual narrative and there is only one camera rolling -- and that in a helicopter so far away that its engine can't be heard? But it doesn't really matter. The movie plays tricks all along with the difference between "reality" and "illusion," an old game into which it's difficult to inject more life, as this movie manages to do.

At one point, Railsback is told to perform a short if dangerous stunt, leaping from one roof to another. He does so, but the stunt escalates. Not only escalates but goes on and on, with Railsback unexpectedly crashing through ceilings and floors in a shower of glass before winding up in the midst of drunken, partying enemies who shout at him and laughingly lift his body above their heads and pass him around the room. It will shock you almost as much as it shocked him. O'Toole asks him after this long gag what it is he wants. Says Railsback: "Not to think I'm going crazy."

The smallest parts are done well. A very authentic-looking German soldier with a cheery old face and big white mustache is loading his rifle for a scene in which he and his comrades are going to fire at Railsback. "I hope those are blanks," Railsback tells him. "It doesn't say so on the box," replies the soldier with a friendly tone and a big smile.

Let me mention Eli Cross, the director, played by O'Toole. At one level this movie is made, through his character, into an examination of God, and his whimsical sense of responsibility towards the human beings whose lives he controls. "Eli Cross"? I mean -- okay -- Elihu, the crucifixion -- the whole JudeoChristian tradition is embodied in that cognomen. Cross has a habit of riding around the sky in a giant crane whose seat drops unexpectedly out of space and into the middle of peoples' conversations. Before the shooting of the final stunt, Cross raises his hand, looking at the horizon, and says something like, "I hereby decree that no cloud shall pass before that sun." And while shooting another scene, the cameraman calls "Cut." Cross pauses, then asks, "WHO called cut?" The cameraman explains that there were only a few seconds of film left on the reel so they had to cut at that poin

One of my favorite movies of all time. Must admit that I'm a bit biased since Peter O'Toole's one of my favorite actors of all time. This movie has NEVER gotten the attention that it deserves. Maybe that's, in part, due to the difficulties involved in categorizing it. I don't even know in which section of the video store I'd start looking.

Peter O'Toole is so swell in it. I love that enigmatic character, movie director Eli Cross! Like the movie (and O'Toole, for that matter), he's so hard to cubbyhole. You like him, but you don't trust him. Like Cameron/Lucky (Steve Railsback's escaped convict character) does, you NEED to know exactly where his motives lie ... all in good time. You know Cross'll do whatever's necessary to get "the shot", but he's still got a conscience ... right? Would Cameron have been better off (read safer) just staying in jail ... hmmm?

All the action in the film circles around this question and while the viewer (and Cameron) decide what to make of Eli, it's a fun trip through the world of filmmaking (how realistic a trip, I've no idea). Great performances by O'Toole and Railsback, along with Barbara Hershey, Allen Garfield, Alex Rocco and Sharon Ferrell add so much to the suspense.

See this movie. You can feel how much fun it was for the cast to make. Look at Eli's devilish grin as he tries to soothe Lucky's worries. Try to imagine how many other movies have you sympathizing for an escaped convict. And don't worry if you don't know what to make of mad genius filmmaker Eli Cross because nobody else does either, and if they do, they ain't talkin' ... that might spoil the movie!