Are film stunts getting more dangerous?
There’s no doubt on-screen stunts have to look more dangerous. Every time the bar is raised, it needs to go a little higher next time. The Bond films – which reported two car-related accidents in quick succession this week – have played their part in this, making their reputation with complicated action sequences. But we should remember that stunts and tricks were an integral part of film from the start. Harold Lloyd desperately hanging on to the clock face in Safety Last! (1923), below, or Buster Keaton surviving a house fall in Steamboat Bill, Jr (1928) are only the best known – indeed Keaton broke his neck, without realising, while making Sherlock Jr (1924). Reliable figures are notoriously hard to find. During the 1990s, Cal-OSHA, the agency that investigates work conditions in Hollywood, estimated that for every 100 employees in motion pictures 1.5 were injured at work. The waters are muddied by apocryphal stories of stunt deaths in films such as Ben-Hur, Mad Max and Hooper (itsel
