Yakima Canutt Jumps Between Horses in Stagecoach (1939)
So much of our idealized image of the Old West, both as a historical setting and as a movie genre, is derived from the iconography of John Ford. Mythic compositions of men on horses, and perhaps thornier depictions of Native Americans in pursuit, define many of Ford’s best films. And 1939’s Stagecoach is high among them. This was the first film in which Ford worked with his onscreen muse John Wayne in Monument Valley, and it set the tropes that many Westerns still follow. What is Firefly if not Joss Whedon’s Stagecoach in space?
Stagecoach also has perhaps the definitive “cowboys and Indians” chase sequence where Apache raiders descend on the titular stagecoach as it makes a frantic dash across Indigenous territory. The chase features two iconic stunts executed by the movie’s stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt. The first of which sees Canutt play an Apache warrior who jumps from his horse to the stagecoach’s team of steeds—only to fall beneath the animals and the wheels of the coach. It’s such a spectacular image that Steven Spielberg remade it 40 years later in Raiders of the Lost Ark, minus the horses. Yet the even more impressive stunt is when Canutt, now made up to resemble Wayne, leaps between each pair of horses pulling the stagecoach in order to take the reins of the out-of-control leader and guide man and beast to safety. It’s still breathtaking almost a century later.
Chariot Race in Ben-Hur (1959)
Ben-Hur became the first film to ever win 11 Academy Awards. To this day, no film has bested that number (though several have tied it). Well, it would have been 12 if there was an Oscar for stunt work. Even 65 years later, there are few sequences as astonishing as the Roman chariot race that proves to be the centerpiece of this monumental Biblical epic.Running at 11 minutes in length, the race was not actually directed by Ben-Hur helmer William Wyler, but rather second unit directors Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt (yes, him again). Filmed with luscious 65mm cameras and 72 horses beneath a vibrant Italian sun, the sequence is gorgeous eye candy to just stare at. But the stunt work is itself so marvelous that to this day urban legends persist that either a stuntman or horse died while making it.
There is no historical evidence of either occurring, however there was a close call that you can watch in the film: the shot of Judah Ben-Hur getting flipped over his own chariot after it strikes a barrier along a wall of the arena? That wasn’t scripted, and the stuntman who performed it nearly died: Joe Canutt, Yakima’s son. He didn’t though, and it changed the scripting of the scene with the filmmakers adding a beat of Charlton Heston being forced to pull himself back in.
Rick Sylvester Skis Off a Glacier in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Really if there had been Oscars for stunts in the last 100 years, the James Bond franchise would have probably collected close to a dozen by now. There are so many to choose from: Bill Suitor operating a real-life jetpack in Thunderball (1965); Wayne Michaels performing the highest bungee jump ever captured on film in Goldeneye (1995); everything Sebastien Foucan did in the Madagascar parkour sequence of Casino Royale (2006).
Yet if we are only going to pick one for this list, it has to be when Rick Sylvester skied right off a glacier atop a Canadian mountain for a sum of $30,000. It’s still the defining 007 stunt which opens one of the series’ best movies where Bond, in a ridiculous yellow “undercover” ski uniform, escapes Soviet assassins by launching himself into an abyss where he does nothing but fall for a breathless 20 seconds. He then pulls the chord on an absurd and terrific Union Jack parachute. Way to keep a low-profile, James. It’s all captured in one unbelievable long shot that cuts just before one of Sylvester’s skis nearly punctures his parachute, which would have sent him plummeting.
