Best Stunt Work – 1971

My Nominations: The French Connection. Vanishing Point. Shaft. Red Sun. Macbeth. Le Mans. A Fistful Of Dynamite. Evel Knievel. Duel. Dirty Harry. The Big Boss.

There’s an obvious winner here, and if you’ve looked at my nominations then you already know what it is. Let’s start in the east first – The Big Boss was the first real film to showcase Bruce Lee’s talents. It doesn’t have the scope of Lee’s later films, but it abandons the wuxia style so popular at the time for a prototype one man army style grit – the stunts are all real, dangerous, and pack a punch. Red Sun has gun fights, swordplay, a train robbery, while A Fistful Of Dynamite switches out the swordplay for explosions and motorcycles. Speaking of motorcycles, Evel Knievel features both manufactured stunts and real life jumps performed by Knievel and other performers while Le Mans does a similar job with cars, featuring plenty of real footage and simulated crashes.

Macbeth I throw in here just for having the audacity to be more visceral and charged than any other version till that point while Shaft has plenty of punches and gunshots on the way to its explosive finale. Dirty Harry features similar levels of stunts and action to Shaft while my final three picks are all car-heavy. The French Connection features a number of fights and chases, but is most notable for one of the most famous car chases in history – when a car chase enters pop culture, you know it’s good. Vanishing Point is almost entirely set in or following a car chase, and while there is just as much time spent enjoying the vastness and beauty of the US landscape the film has a throttle-down pace and plenty of skids, near misses, spins, and crashes. Finally, Steven Spielberg’s debut sees a malevolent truck causing mayhem in one long chase movie with as much suspense as stunt action.

My Winner: The French Connection.

Let us know in the comments what your winning choice is!

Best Stunt Work – 1970

My Nominations: Brewster McCloud. They Call Me Trinity. Catch-22. Little Big Man. Kelly’s Heroes. Tora Tora Tora.

We return to one of my favourite awards, namely because it has never been an official award, and also because stunts are one of those things which draw you to Cinema at a young age – a good stunt will stay in your mind just as much as a powerful line of dialogue or piece of acting. Many people will tell you that, for practical stunts, the 1970s are the finest decade. Certainly we saw an explosion of car chases and stunts, and not only on the big screen, but also through hit TV shows which continued into the 80s, such as CHiPs, Knight Rider, The A-Team, The Dukes Of Hazard etc etc. There’s something unique about the stunts of this era – the way they were filmed, up close, from multiple angles, with realism, and with plenty of slow mo. And they always seemed to take place on some dusty LA highway or desert road. Brewster McCloud has a plethora of stunts, from the aforementioned car chases and crashes to fisticuffs, well placed bird crap, and a boy flying like Icarus. Little Big Man features some stunts which deserve to be more well known and are visually iconic if not part of the public consciousness – the horsework and leaping from carriages here is second to none. They Call Me Trinity doesn’t come near the iconic status of the other films, but is still an underrated and very funny spaghetti western with plenty of action.

Our last three movies are three standard war movies each with their own flavor of action and stunts – Tora Tora Tora most notable of course for its aerial scenes – the same can be said for Catch-22, while Kelly’s Heroes is a more traditional mixture of gunplay, tanks, explosions, and punch-ups.

My Winner: Brewster McCloud

Let us know in the comments which film of 1970 you would hand the Best Stuntwork Award to!

Best Stunt Work – 1969

My Nominations: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid. The Wild Bunch. The Battle Of Britain. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Marlowe. The Italian Job. Downhill Racer.

BCATSK is of course known for for the cliff jump scene – impressive at the time but it has of course been surpassed many times in the decades since. There are plenty of other great stunts and action in the movie, from the gripping train introduction to the various shoot outs, fights, and even Paul Newman’s whimsical bike antics. Similarly, The Wild Bunch is filled with shoot outs, more train action, and horse falls aplenty. Battle Of Britain has all the explosions and action you would expect from a war film – a Guy Hamilton war film no less, but where it raises the game is with the exceptional aerial set pieces – some of the best you’ll ever see in terms of scale, pace, and realism. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service I have always felt to be one of the more action-lite Bond movies, but it has its fair share of stunt too – the Piz Gloria ski slope scenes are memorable. Speaking of ski stunts, Downhill Racer also has excellent snow action, though the focus is much more on realism than Bond’s fun and games. Marlowe’s nomination goes almost single-handedly to Bruce lee, whose demolition of James Garner’s office is both humourous and a sign of things to come for the Chinese star – though there is also standard gun action towards the end of the film. Finally, The Italian Job has car chases galore which have become iconic, at least in Britain.

My Winner: Battle of Britain

Let us know in the comments which film of 1969 you think deserves the Best Stunt Work award!

 

Best Stunt Work – 1968

My Nominations: Bullitt. The Love Bug. Once Upon A Time In The West. Planet Of The Apes. Where Eagles Dare

There is an obvious choice for winner here with Bullitt – famous for one of the greatest car chases in history. It has all the ingredients – classic cars, great drivers, solid direction throughout iconic streets, and realism. It’s that final part which means it doesn’t get my vote – it’s a deserving winner, but with stunt work sometimes I want something a little more over the top. The Love Bug does deliver over the top thrills, Once Upon A Time In The West features another selection of shoot-outs and fights, while Planet Of The Apes has many exciting scenes. My win goes to Where Eagles Dare, something of a forgotten war movie which is strange given its unquestionable star power. It has a lot of set pieces, from treacherous car chases to fights on top of cable cars, as well as parachute stunts, fights, and gunplay. Yakima Cannutt directed most of the action scenes while a host of the best stunt performers in the business helped to create the thrills.

My Winner: Where Eagles Dare.

Which film of 1968 do you think deserves the Best Stunt Work award? Let us know in the comments!

Best Stunt Work – 1966

My Nominations: Grand Prix. The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Is Paris Burning? The Sword Of Doom. The Wild Angels.

A selection of films from around the globe this year, with a Western, War movie, a Samurai epic, and two films focusing on man and machine making my list. Grand Prix takes my win for making car racing look much more exciting than it actually is, with Max Balchowsky, Tom Bamford, Carey Loftin, and Ronnie Rondell Jr performing the majority of the driving.

My Winner: Grand Prix

Which film of 1966 do you think had the best Stunt Work? Let us know in the comments!

Best Stunt Work: 1965

My Nominations: Thunderball. The Great Race. Von Ryan’s Express. For A Few Dollars More. The Battle Of The Bulge. Dr Zhivago.

Bond’s 1965 outing is full of the usual exceptional fight and chase scenes, but it is most notable for its underwater work. Naturally, taking the action below the waves has inherent dangers and gave a unique twist to action thrillers of the time, but many of the scenes drag on and lack pace, so although they were remarkable at the time, and still an impressive achievement, they feel a little dated now. Von Ryan’s Express has fights on top of trains, large and small-scale gun battles. The Agony And The Ecstasy has horse battles. The Battle Of The Bulge features a fair amount of epic war scenes and tank combat. Dr Zhivago has a bit of everything, from battle scenes across icy wastelands on horseback, to epic gun battles while For A Few Dollars More has gritty gunplay and tense build-ups before the release of action. The Great Race is like a live action Wacky Races, mixing exciting, nitro-fuelled car action with absurd, extensive pie fighting. There is a massive list of stunt performers, mostly who went criminally uncredited in the film – basically everyone involved in stunts in the 60s was involved in this one.

My Winner: The Great Race

Which film of 1965 do you think has the Best Stunt Work? Let us know in the comments!

Best Stunt Work: 1964

My Nominations: 633 Squadron. Goldfinger. A Fistful Of Dollars. Zulu.

With each passing year, Hollywood writers, directors, and stunt performers grew more ambitious and adventurous with their stunt ideas. 633 Squadron became a perennial British Christmas hit and the aerial battle scenes remain some of the most impressive ever filmed. The film lacked a huger star though and was not a big commercial hit. John Crewdson and Joe Powell are the uncredited geniuses here. Both men again had illustrious careers but are barely remembered. Zulu raised the bar for sheer scale of ground battle scenes, and while there are no obvious single outstanding stunts, the onslaught of fighting and action on screen at any given time must have been hell for the stunt crew and director to manage. Joe Powell again gets in on the act with John Sullivan providing stunt direction.  A Fistfull Of Dollars features plenty of stylized gun play with Benito Stefanelli acting as co-ordinator and stuntman, becoming the go to guy for Spaghetti Westerns. Goldfinger features many of Bond’s most famous setpieces – the laser table, the aerial scenes, the DB5 ejector seat and crash, and of course Bond’s fight with Oddjob. Bob Simmons and his large crew are to thank for some wonderful moments.

My Winner: 633 Squadron.

Which movie from 1964 do you feel has the best stunt work? Let us know in the comments!

Best Stuntwork – Intro

*Note* Here is a post which I wrote years ago and was going to use as an introduction to my picks for the Best Stuntwork Oscar, starting with 1960. For some reason I neglected to post it, so here it is – it’s pretty bad.**

Since pretty much the dawn of cinema, there have been stunts and stunt professionals- men and women willing to put their bodies and lives on the line so that the gaping masses can stare up at the screen and say ‘Holy Shit, that was awesome!’, or in the case of Keanu Reeves ‘Wow’, or in the case of idiots ‘Pff, I could do that’. Chances are that if you have been to the cinema this year (or ever) you will have seen a big budget effects extravaganza littered with huge action set pieces and minor stunts you may even have missed. Even if you’re some hipster who only watches Polish short films from the 30s, wears ridiculous sweaters, and brushes their teeth with feces, you probably know that those in the stunt business have a damn hard, cool, and underappreciated job.

Unlike, say, sound editing (or in some extreme cases cinematography, writing, anything) stunt work is something which is immediate and which everyone can witness if not appreciate. For example, when you watched all those kids being blown into the sky in The Hunger Games, or those faceless baddies been kicked in the balls and thrown down stairs in every 80s action movie ever, you understood that a stunt had taken place for your entertainment. You may not have appreciated the amount of time, work, and planning which went into a particular task, be it falling off a horse in Braveheart or racing/crashing a car in the Bond series. Even after decades of lobbying, it seems that those in charge of The Academy Awards do not understand or appreciate this work, which is frankly ludicrous.

Having grown up in the 80s and 90s, I have fed upon a diet of Spielberg and Lucas, worshipped at the altar of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Van Damme, and occasionally suckled at the teat of Bay. I love action, I need action, and I expect to see at least 30 characters getting seriously hurt in every film, each in more over the top ways. However, whichever age of Hollywood you were raised on, influenced through, and subsequently broken by, stunts have always been there. Whether it was Harold Lloyd dangling precariously from a clock in the 1920s, Buster Keaton narrowly avoiding being crushed by a house, John Ford’s Western epics of the 30s and 40s, Butch and Sundance leaping off a cliff in the 60s, or Jackie Chan dangling precariously from a clock in Project A, the fact is that some of the most iconic moments in the history of cinema have been thought up and executed by some of the craziest shits this side of Charlie Sheen’s toilet.

So, until the time that these guys are recognized officially by people more important than me, I will strive to do my part to remember and regale the people who have provided me with some of the greatest vicarious thrills of my life (watching someone else receive a mouth-gift via glory hole counts as a vicarious thrill, right?) until I find something more meaningful to do with my time.

Best Stunt Work: 1963

My Nominations: From Russia With Love. The Great Escape. It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Jason And The Argonauts. How The West Was Won.

Some great stunt performances this year, with How The West Was Won and It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World providing plenty of thrills. However, my other three nominations contain a number of iconic moments in movie stunt history- Russia has the flying man intro, Jason has the skeleton fight and more, while Escape has the motorcycle jump. It’s a tough call. My winner though is:

My Winner: Jason And The Argonauts.

More than just a sword fight, we have a series of action scenes on a large-scale with performers high diving off ships, avoiding giants, chasing harpies, and taking part in assorted Olympian games. It’s a classic action adventure film with tonnes of memorable stunts. Ralph Faulkner, one of the greatest swordsmen of Western movies (The Three Musketeers, The Thief Of Bagdad) and Eddie Powell (Batman, Aliens, multiple Bond movies) earn the plaudits.

Let me know your picks for the best Stunt of 1963 in the comments below!

Best Stunt Work: 1962

My Nominations: This year arguably saw the first of what could be classed as ‘the modern action movie’ with Agent 007 embarking on his premier mission. With this new approach to genre-filmaking, focus on action set-pieces and stunt work became heavier as directors became more ambitious and pushed for bigger, badder, better hooks for their movies. As it was the first, Hollywood still relied on the tried and tested ways of the past, with epic battles, haymakers, and horse heroics, but Dr.No clearly symbolized a change to both a tighter, more taut and yet more bombastic, extravagant approach.

The 300 Spartans: Unfortunately I have no idea who was involved in the stunt work in the film, so my credit goes to director Rudolph Mate, and military advisor Major Cleanthis Damianos for helping to shape some original, sweeping battle scenes.

Cape Fear: Although most of the violence in the film is unseen and suggested, there are still some potent scenes and impressive work, much of which was performed by the acting roster.

Dr No: From the now requisite pre-title sequence, to the car chases, from the many fist fights to the dragon attack and final Island battle/escape, Dr No is packed with action and premium stunt work. As expected, we have many (shockingly uncredited) stunt performers who were well on their way to become legends in the field – Peter Brace (Batman, Willow, Prince of Thieves, Raiders Of The Lost Ark), Gerry Crampton (Daylight, The Dirty Dozen), and of course Bob Simmons (future Bond films) to name a few.

The Longest Day: A film of this magnitude and with this subject matter will always rely on dedicated stunt professionals, and here they pull off some stunning work. The likes of Joe and Nosher Powell (future Bond movies), Ken Buckle (First Knight, Cleopatra) and Ian Yule (Ben-Hur, The Wild Geese) should be commended here.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: A film not renowned for its stunt work, this nevertheless has many great moments thanks to the likes of married stunt performers Louise and Montie Montana, Chuck Hayward who double for Wayne and most of the biggest Western stars of the era , and Hal Needham, arguably the most famous stuntman of them all.

Sanjuro: Not to be outdone by the West, Japanese master Kurosawa creates yet another rip-roaring Samurai piece, complete with expected, and unexpected swordplay moments. Whilst not as visually memorable as Yojimbo or Seven Samurai, the sword fighting is second to none, thanks to Ryu Kuze.

My Winner: Dr. No

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments and have a go at the poll!