{"id":18715,"date":"2026-06-24T20:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=18715"},"modified":"2026-06-23T21:22:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T01:22:49","slug":"the-stunt-man-1980-richard-rush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/18715","title":{"rendered":"The Stunt Man (1980, Richard Rush)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heck of an opening sequence.  This silly meta-action movie isn&#8217;t gonna top that, I thought, then the opening sequence is followed by an entire heck of a film, to the point that I started wondering if it won oscars.  Nominated, but tough luck coming out the same year as <em>Raging Bull<\/em> and <em>Ordinary People<\/em>.  Director is the toughest race: Redford\/Lynch\/Scorsese\/Polanski\/Rush.  I haven&#8217;t seen <em>Tess<\/em>, but Rush would feel like a strong contender.  This is a good man-on-the-run drama about the making of a bad WWI movie, every shot and camera placement and stunt and Peter O&#8217;Toole line reading a bit further out than necessary.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image26\/stunt1.jpeg\"><\/p>\n<p>Steve Railsback (star of <em><a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/12309\">Lifeforce<\/a><\/em>) is on the run from the cops when he stumbles onto a movie set and maybe accidentally helps kill a stunt driver.  Filmmaker Peter O&#8217;Toole hires Railsback as the new\/old stuntman, claiming to the police that there was no accident, the two guys covering for each other at least until manipulative madman O&#8217;Toole gets all the dangerous long takes he needs.  The actress caught between these guys is Barbara Hershey (<em>Last Temptation of Christ<\/em>, Mrs. Yeager in <em><a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/16279\">The Right Stuff<\/a><\/em>).  It all works out, more or less, Railsback admitting he became a fugitive by attacking a cop with a <a href=\"\/journal\/archives\/18141\">tub of ice cream<\/a>, and O&#8217;Toole graciously not murdering him during a stunt.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/journal\/image26\/stunt2.jpeg\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heck of an opening sequence. This silly meta-action movie isn&#8217;t gonna top that, I thought, then the opening sequence is followed by an entire heck of a film, to the point that I started wondering if it won oscars. Nominated, but tough luck coming out the same year as Raging Bull and Ordinary People. Director [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[357,91,109,3500],"class_list":["post-18715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1980s","tag-filmmaking","tag-peter-otoole","tag-richard-rush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18733,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18715\/revisions\/18733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}