Hazard of the Game

This fifth episode of the brilliant and amazingly thorough by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill is wonderful because unlike many documentaries on filmmaking, it takes the time to commend important but often unsung geniuses--the stuntmen who make many scenes possible. Two things I loved about the film were all the wonderful stories by the stuntmen and I ADORED hearing how the stunts were done. In particular, hearing about how Harold Lloyd actually did NOT do much of his famous climbing in "Safety Last" as well as how they made the stunts much safer than they looked--that really impressed me (and is mentioned again later in one of Brownlow and Gill's other documentaries, "Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius". It was also shocking hearing how cavalier many filmmakers were towards their extras and stunt folks. Well worth seeing and truly exciting.

...quips a financial backer of one of Ed Wood's latest triumphs in the 1994 fim, "Ed Wood". In the silent era, though, somebody could actually get killed during that explosion!

This episode talks about the unsung heroes of silent film when there were no unions or legal protections or computer fakery. Those were real people outrunning trains, jumping on stampeding horses, and crashing real airplanes. I wasn't familiar with any of the names other than Yakima Canutt because he was in some B oaters with John Wayne in the 30s, and Fred Thompson, because he was the one true love of Frances Marion, early screenwriter. In spite of him having to do some of his own dangerous stunts in his westerns, he actually died on Christmas day 1928 of tetanus.

Some of the silent stars claimed to do all of their own stunts, but if a star such as Douglas Fairbanks was injured in a stunt, then the whole production stopped. So in the long shots even Fairbanks had a stunt man.

Some of the more jarring stories - "The Trail of 98" is recounted as the worst disaster in film history not because of its financial returns, but because of the loss of life involved. This film was shot on location in Alaska. An assistant director was in charge of setting up ropes lined with steel across a raging frozen river so the stunt men could grab the ropes at the last minute. The ropes were hung without steel, the ropes warped in the freezing cold, and four men were lost. Viola Dana, who lost her director husband in 1918 to the Spanish flu, finds a second chance at love with a barn storming stuntman. In 1920, she began a relationship with pilot Ormer "Lock" Locklear. He was making a movie with Fox that involved him pulling out of a tail spin, but required the ground crew to signal him. The signal never came and Locklear crashed to his death. Viola Dana saw the whole thing and would not fly in an airplane again for 25 years.

There are lots of interviews with the surviving stuntmen, including Canutt, and of course some of it is archival footage because not everybody was still around by 1980. It is a fascinating watch especially in a day when ladders come with legal warnings "You may fall resulting in severe injury. Consult your physician first".

Hollywood: Hazard of the Game (1980)

**** (out of 4)

Fans of silent cinema can always point their finger at pure drama in many of the stunts that were performed by both the actors as well as stunt men. This was long before rear-projection so there was nothing fake going on. If you wanted something dangerous and thrilling on film then you had to do the stunt. This fifth-entry in the terrific documentary series takes a look at these brave men and some of the remarkable stunts they were able to do. Stuntmen Harvey Parry, Bob Rose and Paul Malvern are on hand to tell some terrific stories about the work they did in films such as SAFETY LAST!, THE BLACK PIRATE, BELOVED ROGUE, THUNDERING HOOFS, ROBIN HOOD and many, many others. There are some very good stories about the famous building sequence in Harold Lloyd's SAFETY LAST! and we get to hear how the stunt was done and what influenced. There's a brief interview with Lloyd here but we also get to hear from the stunt person who agreed to not tell anyone he did the stunt until after Lloyd passed. There's some amazing footage from the films shown here and it's rather breath-taking seeing these stunts simply because you know how dangerous they were. It was great fun and even more thrilling hearing from the actual men doing them as we get to here how the stunts were prepared and if there was anything that went wrong. Needless to say, considering how dangerous this stuff was there's plenty of time devoted to those who actually lost their lives. We hear about the flood sequence in NOAH'S ARC but we also hear about some now-forgotten films including TRAIL OF '98, which had four men getting killed in a rapids sequence and 1920's THE SKYWAYMAN where Ormer Locklear and another man were killed when a stunt went horribly wrong. Fox went ahead and released the film with the footage in it but all prints are now long gone. Those who aren't familiar with silent movies will certainly gain some appreciation here just by being able to see how dangerous this stuff once was and I'm sure they'll respect these people a lot more since the stunts were real and not just some computer screen doing all the work.

Rear projection, matte shots, and CGI have made the impossible seem possible; but during the silent era, before even rear-projection had been invented, the action depicted on the screen had to be actually performed. The fifth episode of the Brownlow-Gill documentary on American silent film sings the often unsung accomplishments of Hollywood's stunt men and women. Appropriately, the interviews highlight veteran stunt people such as Harvey Parry, Yakima Canutt, Paul Malvern, Mrs. Buck Jones, and Bob Rose. Hungry for work, extras would often take a job without asking what they had to do; employment was scarce, and the competition for a day's wages was fierce. While some stunt people came from the circus, others were inexperienced novices. At some studios, stunts had a price scale; so many dollars per foot of a jump from a tall building, so much to be dragged behind a stage coach or a car, a fixed fee to a roll down a stone wall. The brutal, unplanned nature of the stunts often resulted in injury, occasionally death.

Some specialized in specific areas; stunt man Harvey Parry was expert in car accidents and crashes, while deceased stunt men Dick Grace, Gene Perkins, and Ormer Locklear were recalled for their daring work in aerial battles and plane crashes for such films as 1927's "Wings" and 1928's "Lilac Time." During one moving segment, actresses Leatrice Joy and Viola Dana remember the handsome Locklear, who took each of them flying in his plane. Dana and Locklear evidently fell in love, and she was moved to tears and unwilling to continue, while remembering his death when the plane he was flying crashed during filming.

Audiences had to believe that the stars did their own stunts, although few did; the athletic Douglas Fairbanks was among those who performed some of his own. His son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., talks about his father's work on the "Black Pirate" in 1926, and he reveals the secrets behind the famous sequence in which Fairbanks slides down a main sail while holding onto the handle of a knife. Harold Lloyd also did some of his own stunts, and, in an older interview, the comic recounts his climb up a building facade in 1923's "Safety Last;" however, Harvey Parry said that he doubled for Lloyd, a secret kept until Lloyd passed away. Yakima Canutt describes the challenges of working with a particularly dangerous horse named Rex, during the filming of "Devil Horse" in 1926, and Paul Malvern shares memories of "Beloved Rogue," a 1927 film with John Barrymore. Stuntman Bob Rose describes the hardships and loss of four men in icy rapids during the production of "Trail of '98" in 1928.

Directors Allan Dwan and Al Rogell and camerman Byron Haskin provide further anecdotes and depth to the daring work of stunt people during the silent era. Car crashes, runaway covered wagons, wild horses, leaps aboard speeding trains, battles in the air, on the sea, and on the land; the fearless stunt people were there. "The Hazard of the Game" is another fine episode in the landmark series, and the previously unexplored subject matter is valuable and rewarding.