Cameron is a young veteran running from the police. He stumbles onto the set of a World War I movie, where eccentric and autocratic director, Eli Cross, agrees to hide him from the police. Cameron falls in love with Nina Franklin, the film's star, while the production, and the film, blur the lines between reality and make-believe.
During the early 1970s, Columbia Pictures owned film rights to the novel, with Arthur Penn and François Truffaut considered for directing it. Columbia offered the film to Richard Rush on the strength of the success of his previous film, Getting Straight. Rush initially rejected, then ultimately accepted directing The Stunt Man. In July 1971 Columbia announced that Rush would direct the film with William Castleexecutive producer. Rush then penned a 150-page treatment different from the book; in the novel, the characters were all crazy, and in the screenplay, they were instead "sane in a world gone mad." Columbia executives then rejected the script, saying it was difficult to find a genre to place it in. Said Rush: "They couldn't figure out if it was a comedy, a drama, if it was a social satire, if it was an action adventure...and, of course, the answer was, 'Yes, it's all those things.' But that isn't a satisfactory answer to a studio executive." Rush then bought the film rights from Columbia and shopped the film to other studios, to no avail. Funding for the picture finally came from Melvin Simon who had made a fortune in real estate. Production took place in 1978. Opening scenes were filmed at Mary Etta's Cafe, Flinn Springs, California. Many scenes were filmed in and around the historic Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, California. Peter O'Toole mentions in his DVD commentary that he based his character on David Lean who directed him in Lawrence of Arabia.
Reception
, the comedy drama film held an 89% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 38 reviews. The critics consensus states, "The Stunt Man is a preposterously entertaining thriller with a clever narrative and Oscar-worthy Peter O'Toole performance." Roger Ebert wrote "there was a great deal in it that I admired... there were times when I felt cheated". He gave the film two stars but noted that others had "highly recommended" it. In an October 17, 1980, review in The New York Times, Janet Maslin noted "the film's cleverness is aggressive and cool," but concluded that although "the gamesmanship of The Stunt Man is fast and furious... gamesmanship is almost all it manages to be". Jay Scott called it "he best movie about making a movie ever made, but the achievement merely begins there. ... Imagine a picture an eight-year-old and Wittgenstein could enjoy with equal fervor." Critic Pauline Kael considered it "a virtuoso piece of kinetic moviemaking" and rated it one of year's best films. She called O'Toole's comic performance "peerless".
The Stunt Man was released on DVD on November 20, 2001 in two versions by Anchor Bay Entertainment. The first version is a standard release featuring two deleted scenes and a commentary by director Richard Rush. The second version is a limited edition containing everything from the standard release as well as the 2000 documentary The Sinister Saga of Making "The Stunt Man". The film's theme song "Bits & Pieces" is sung by Dusty Springfield.
