And this week's Friday night movie has been.....The Devil at Your Heels!
Has anyone heard of this? This is a 1981 documentary on the (now deceased) Canadian stuntman Ken Carter. This follows his attempts to perform the ultimate stunt: Jumping the St Lawrence River (on the border of Canada and the U.S.) in a rocket car. It was Ken's intention that this be his moment of glory after twenty years of car jumps.
So what this documentary....documents is the journey to make that jump. But it never runs smoothly: It covers five years (!) to make it happen, wherein so many things go wrong with backers coming and going, numerous attempts to drum up support, technical faults and delays & cancellations upon delays & cancellations. It may sound like grounds for a Monty Python skit but it's not: There is an aura of tragedy - particularly when one sees Ken Carter himself: He's always talking up this jump like any man with a dream and he certainly has the passion and conviction to see it through. Thus in a way, you really feel sorry for the guy when nothing is going right.
Still, great documentary, and it;s great to finally see it after some twenty four years since i was first made aware of it.
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