The Stunt Man (1980)

Director: Richard Rush
Writer: Lawrence B. Marcus, adapted by Richard Rush from the novel by Paul Brodeur
Stars: Peter O’Toole, Steve Railsback and Barbara Hershey

Index: Make It a Double.

Now that I’ve seen The Stunt Man, it’s hard to imagine Steve Railsback could have any other picture in his career more appropriate as his first choice for this project. Cameron is a gift of a part for a young actor, the traditional lead character manipulated by the non-traditional lead character, both in this film, The Stunt Man, and in a film within the film, an unnamed war movie set during World War I.

Railsback also goes through what seems like every emotion known to an actor with maybe a few new ones for good measure, and in doing so, holds his own against Peter O’Toole in an iconic award-worthy performance—the latter was Oscar-nominated alongside John Hurt for The Elephant Man and Robert de Niro for Raging Bull. Talk about a tough year!

As we start, Cameron is nervous. There are too many cops in the café with him and, sure enough, one slaps his handcuffs on him, so he runs. He’s not the titular stunt man yet, but what he does would count as an impressive demo reel. On a bridge, he thumbs a ride in a vintage Duesenberg with an imperial German eagle on the side, only for the driver to kick him out of the car then try to run him down, ending in the river. That’s when he realises he has been filmed from a helicopter all along.

This is only the first example of the picture blurring reality and fiction, but it continues to do that, increasingly so, as it runs on. Cameron runs away from the helicopter and makes it to town, where he watches the filming of a beach attack that horrifies the audience, because the gory special effects work was concealed by the abundant smoke and the performers milk it.

At this point, we’ve watched Cameron think he’s in his own reality, when he’s really in the very different reality of a film shoot and we’ve watched a town fall for that too in a far more deliberate manner. Here is where we start to wonder if Richard Rush is doing precisely the same thing to us, because we wonder why the scene being shot was so complex, so long and so full of gore effects that we didn’t see set up.

It’s probably a good idea to keep that well in mind as we meet Eli Cross, the director of the film within a film. He’ll clearly do anything to keep his picture on target, because he quickly hires Cameron to be Bert Burns, the stunt man doubling for the lead actor, Raymond Bailey. It seems that the real Bert Burns is still in the car at the bottom of the river and the local sheriff will happily shut the production down over an accident like that. So Cameron is now Bert and everyone plays along.

As we gradually realise, Cross will also do anything to get a great performance out of an actor or, indeed, a stunt man. Peter O’Toole apparently based him on David Lean, whom he had worked for on Lawrence of Arabia. If this is what Lean was like, I feel for him and hope a fictionalisation of his exploits helped him get through therapy. Then again, O’Toole is likely to have just gone down the pub.

What this means is that there are plenty of scenes that seem to be the first layer of fiction, with Cameron working for Cross, but cleverly segue into the deeper layer, of the film within the film. And, just in case that isn’t enough, we quickly learn that Cameron, who’s the hero of the film, even though he’s wanted for murder throughout, is also a Vietnam veteran who is very likely to be suffering from PTSD. In other words, we can’t trust that he’s always able to tell the difference between his reality and the one he’s found himself in, and Cross plays that up very deliberately for effect.

Railsback is therefore playing Cameron first and foremost, which is a solid part. However, he’s also playing Cameron playing Bert, which is an even better part. And he’s also Cameron playing Bert playing Raymond, without always being able to distinguish between them. That’s a serious opportunity of a part and Railsback is able to live up to it, even if the more famous O’Toole ended up with more award nods.

I lost track of the emotions Railsback works through here: nervous, as the cops catch him; eager, because he has a job; elated, because an isolated stunt will pay him $600; smitten, as he falls in love with Barbara Hershey, who’s Nina Franklin, the leading lady in the war flick...

Many of the more overt manipulations that Cross pulls involve Nina. For a start, Cameron embarks on an affair with her without anyone ever pointing out that she’s with Eli, not least Nina herself. Cameron’s the one who consoles her when Eli sets her up to play shameful in a scene by screening a nude love scene of her to her parents then telling her about it. She can’t believe he’d stoop to that sort of thing, only to promptly do the same to Cameron, perhaps in cohorts with Eli. What’s a man to think?

The Stunt Man came out in 1980, but it took a long time to get made. It’s based on a novel by Paul Brodeur that was released in 1970, with the lead character an army deserter hiding as a stunt man rather than a veteran wanted for murder. Richard Rush was attached as director in 1971 and he wasn’t the first, but the script’s genre-hopping baffled Columbia so it bounced around in development hell—and litigation, as Warner Bros. started to develop their own film called The Stuntman, which eventually became Hooper—until 1978, when it finally made it into production. At that point, it likely didn’t shock anyone when it was delayed while Rush dealt with a heart attack in 1979.

It’s an astounding movie, mostly because of Peter O’Toole and Steve Railsback, but also due to how it was shot, Rush able to manipulate us as well as Eli manipulates Cameron. It’s also an excellent film about filmmaking, because, the main thrust of the story aside, we see how the script for a picture changes as it’s made, with scriptwriter one of the toughest jobs. We also see how important the crew members are that don’t tend to get noticed, a long list that runs all the way down to the PAs. Charles Bail, who was a real stuntman, does a great job as Chuck Barton, the stunt coordinator on the war film who has all the patience needed to train a new and very green stunt man.

I’ve done very minor acting on local shoots and I’ve seen other local films being made. I’ve even worked in Hollywood, albeit for a single day at Air Hollywood on a short film. I haven’t seen a full on Hollywood feature being made, but I have to wonder how closely it resembles this, a combination of pure professionalism on a grand scale and utter madness on a personal one. What The Stunt Man suggests to us is that movie magic is where the two cross.