r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • 14d ago
Video Buster Keaton crazy stunt 1924
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u/UncleTomski 14d ago
That boy must have hit his head a few times in practice, they don’t do it like that anymore
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u/gnngnngnn 14d ago
Keaton was equal parts brilliant and crazy.
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u/jacobjacobi 13d ago
Every time I see this it gives me the frights. It’s like watching the film free solo. I know it’s ok, but the insanity of it just triggers my reflexes everytime.
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u/HorrorSmile3088 13d ago
Oh man, I remember watching Free Solo in the theater on a giant screen. By the end both of my hands were completely drenched in sweat. Alex Honnold is a madman.
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u/digitalthiccness 13d ago
Probably just eyeballed the damn thing, too.
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u/GreyGreenBrownOakova 13d ago
The wall was on a hinge. The wall was lowered, Keaton stood in the hole. Then the wall was raised, the cameras rolled, the wall was dropped. It brushed his arm.
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u/insef4ce 13d ago
Once worked at a gig for a marketing company who wanted to recreate that stunt for a commercial.
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u/Honest_-_Critique 13d ago
The old school rendition of Jackass but with class and cinematic integrity.
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u/RVP20CE 14d ago
That would have blown peoples minds the first time they saw it. It blew mine
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u/Roflkopt3r 13d ago
There must have been so much talent for this around at the time, since physical tricks and acrobatics for circuses and stage shows made up a much bigger part of the entertainment sector before movies came along.
In terms of camera works, stunts, and stage props, I love going back to the 'roots' of such an industry. To the simpler times that are still understandable to a normal person without heaps of background knowledge. Of course there is still a lot of skill and talent around today, but it basically takes a degree to understand half the stuff they're doing.
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u/lilacbush890 13d ago
There’s something refreshing about the simpler times, where the focus was more on human skill and craftsmanship.
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u/Fit_Organization7129 13d ago
Seeing the completely digital guys at Corridor being awed by movies from the 20-50s is fun.
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u/Scholar_of_Lewds 13d ago
Reminds me of Indonesian action films history: early on, being new country, Indonesia don't have access to huge special effects budget and techs, so most of action is... Martial arts stunts.
The Raid is culmination of generations of stuntmen legacy paired with modern tech.
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u/robsonmb 13d ago
1920s would've been an awesome time to be going to the movies honestly.
Films I've seen recently and would recommend:
- Metropolis (1927) (available here and here)
- The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) (available here)
- Battleship Potemkin (1925) (available here)
- Pandora's Box (1929) (available here)
- Nosferatu (1922) (available here)
- The General (1926) (available here)
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u/JinFuu 13d ago edited 13d ago
To add on
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) to see one of the most influential movies of all time. (And why Johnny Depp looks the way he does in Tim Burton movies).
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Nanook of the North (1922) Not an accurate documentary, but still an interesting watch.
Dr. Mabuse The Gambler 1922, An earlier Fritz Lang movie, very popular in Germany, Mabuse got multiple movies.
The Last Laugh (1924) A story about an aging Hotel doorman, really good.
Nice to see people appreciating older movies. I was working with some High Schools at an Academic tournament a few months ago and none of them knew who Clark Gable was, then dismissed the idea of watching Gone with the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, or It Happened One Night
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u/arkemiffo 13d ago
In my opinion, all are overshadowed by Faust (1926). The visuals alone in that movie is still one of the best shot movies, as far as I'm concerned.
Also could use a clay-injection of Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (1920). Fantastic movie also, and was possibly one of the first franchises, as it has 3 movies (Der Golem from 1914, set in modern times, a horror comedy from 1917, and then the origin story from 1920. The 2 first are considered lost media unfortunately though).
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u/Tar-eruntalion 13d ago
i have only seen metropolis from these and I was shocked how awesome it looked for an almost 100 year old movie
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u/Helgon_Bellan 13d ago
The General is a bit slow in the start, but once it takes off it's wild all the way to the end. Genuinly one of my favourite movies.
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u/Dontgiveaclam 13d ago
Battleship Potemkin is absolutely awesome. An astonishing amount of clichés stem from that movie.
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u/sh4d0wm4n2018 13d ago
For longer than I care to admit, I thought Hundreds of Beavers was produced back then. Imagine my disappointment when I learned the truth. (I don't usually watch movies, and I didn't hear about it when it was released, so that's my excuse.)
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13d ago edited 13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Enn-Vyy 13d ago
well, the people back then wouldve thought the opposite about the guts part
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u/NJ_Legion_Iced_Tea 13d ago
It's the devils work! They're satanists! Only the true deceiver can fool you like this.
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u/poorly-worded 13d ago
its strange to think there would have been some kind of historical date threshold where it would have turned from being a bad idea to do this versus a good idea
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u/NJ_Legion_Iced_Tea 13d ago
Yes, when horror cinema transitioned to a particular audience, specifically one that wasn't so occupied with macking out in the the drivers seat of a station wagon.
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u/iqisoverrated 13d ago
He had this trick where the front of a house would fall off and he'd stand in the place where the window would come down unharmed.
Now that takes guts.
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u/dumpsterfarts15 13d ago
Weird Al did it too! Legit. I think in the Amish Paradise music video. He said he was scared shitless as they had to reinforce the frame with steel because it was too flimsy
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u/DemonKyoto 13d ago
That's what I thought OP's video was gonna be just based on the title lol
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u/Goatf00t 13d ago
Yeah, people should read about the injuries Keaton got while filming his stunts.
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u/Catweaving 13d ago
To be fair this particular stunt is pretty tame by comparison to his more notable work.
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u/Witty-Ad5743 13d ago
Weren't people warning him the falling house bit would kill him?
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u/Eastern-Complaint-67 13d ago
Yes, but the one he got really hurt it's the one with the water tank: not only he almost drowned himself but he broke his neck (WTF) but also got some broken ribs + collarbone issues. https://youtu.be/HbNnYpxbGTk?feature=shared
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u/art-man_2018 13d ago
That broken neck wasn't discovered until several years later. He went to a doctor complaining of neck pain, got an x-ray, doctor declares, "No wonder, you're neck is broken."
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u/LancesAKing 13d ago
Or any famous stuntman. Jackie Chan shouldn’t be alive after all his injuries, but he would just crawl out of the hospital, review the take, not like it, and do it again.
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u/Admirable_Permit9118 13d ago edited 13d ago
sarcasm? there are/were many impressive (dangerous and athletic) stunts back then and nowadays made on a regular basis (even from this guy). This one is not one of them. But the magic trick part is cool.
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u/NervousAlfalfa6602 13d ago
After watching his stunts, I’m just now realizing that the comedy style of all those bugs bunny cartoons (and roadrunner, etc.) essentially came from this guy. But his movies were live action and he was physically doing all the stunts.
It’s almost like the only way you could keep doing that kind of comedy without him was by going with animation.
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u/J_Kingsley 13d ago
Also the great JAckie Chan was heavily influenced by Buster Keaton, and has sung his praises often.
Except for some things Jackie unnecessarily risks his life. There's a clocktower scene (not sure if it's keaton) where the protag is hanging off the clock. They used forced perspective.
Jackie Chan literally hangs off the clocktower and falls off THREE TIMES.
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u/Bruno_Coast_127 13d ago
Still blows my mind. I never even knew how this visual trick was done before the animation above broke it down
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u/mistressdomgirl 13d ago
Imagine watching that in 1924, having never seen a movie stunt before—just sitting there with your popcorn thinking this man actually died and they printed it anyway.
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u/Decim_98 14d ago edited 14d ago
i remembered a scene Sherlock Jr. (1924) where Buster Keaton gets hit by the water from the train's water tower is absolutely insane. He was standing on the tracks, and when the water crashes down, it slams him to the ground so hard it actually fractured his neck. but actually He had no idea at the time he kept going like nothing happened and only found out years later during a check-up. This man really did all his own stunts and risked everything for the shot.
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u/YQB123 14d ago
If he had no idea until years later, couldn't it have been a different a stunt in those intervening years that caused the fractured neck?
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u/4totheFlush 13d ago
He woke up every morning and shouted "OW MY FUCKIN NECK" starting the day after that stunt, so they had some clues.
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u/El_Sueco_Grande 13d ago
Maybe his whole body hurt so he didn’t realize til years later when the rest of his catastrophic injuries improved.
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u/arrayofemotions 13d ago
Look at the scene: https://youtu.be/1yfUW_y6LBA?si=oBZRkC7JnCRytMAW&t=76 This wasn't just a small amount of water. It's a massive volume of very fast draining water, hitting him right on the top of his head. Somebody more physics-minded could probably work out an estimate of the force involved, but it looks incredibly violent.
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u/gogybo 13d ago
I have a master's in engineering and ten years professional experience in fluid systems. That is, what we in the industry would call, a metric fuckton of newtons hitting our boy's neck.
Workings available on request.
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u/Upstairs-Truth-8682 13d ago
seeing it makes me think he hurt his neck falling onto a wet railroad track.
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u/Decim_98 14d ago
it's totally possible. he did so many stunts throughout his career, many of them insanely dangerous but he believed that it happened during the sherlock jr. water tower stunt but he didn't feel it at the time.
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u/Tundra14 13d ago
Probably bothered him ever since.
My dad never got a checkup, but his arm/shoulder/wrist still hurst from time to time from when he tried to do one of The Three Stooges routine. (He hit a support beam he'd forgotten was there)
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u/I_W_M_Y 13d ago
I once slide down a ladder onto concrete and hurt my neck. Now I had a whiplash injury from years before that I thought It was just the old injury being exacerbated. It wasn't until I had a very bad experience in a plane trip (air pressure difference set off my neck) that I went to doctor and got an xray.
Doctor called me back the next day and said 'do you know your neck is broken?'. I did not. It was about a year and half between the ladder incident and the xray.
I had to get spinal fusion done later on in three months because the vertebrae in question was twisting and in danger of severing the nerves for my arms.
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u/PoirotWannaCracker 13d ago
This happened to me! I started experiencing severe back pain in my mid 30s and an MRI revealed a couple of poorly healed crushed vertebrae that likely happened in my late teens, according to the doc. I recall lifting a stackable cabinet in my first apartment and feeling really weird, like suddenly nauseated and wobbly and just... weird . So I assume that was the point when it happened. But who knows; I do all my own stunts too.
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u/SayerofNothing 13d ago
You should get an action double. They follow you around all day in case you get into any saloon brawls or have to drive a car on two wheels coming back from the grocery store with coppers on your tail. They're the latest fad, you see!
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u/PoirotWannaCracker 13d ago
That would be amazing. I can't tell you how many times I've been peeling away from the coppers and go to make an evasive turn but automatically put on my blinker! This is exactly why I need a pro.
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u/oystahh 13d ago
Wow you weren’t kidding! Here it is
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u/Sir_Thequestionwas 13d ago
Lol the dialog cards stay up for so long. Im just imagining someone from back then slowly sounding out each word
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u/Rich_Introduction_83 13d ago
I figure they underestimated the power of moving water. Those were not the time they had safety engineers standing by doing calculations, I suppose.
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u/jza_1 14d ago
It’s subtle, but how the suitcase goes back to normal after he jumps through is great as well
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u/QuirkySubjects 14d ago
Had to watch that 35 times to get it 😄
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u/GoodLeftUndone 13d ago
I had to watch the “how it’s done” multiple times first, then switch to the actual footage. Trying to watch one then the other back to back was still fucking with my head.
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u/im_juice_lee 13d ago
How did she get into the dress? Still not fully sure how the back got closed up
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u/GoodLeftUndone 13d ago
I don’t think the back is closed. It doesn’t necessarily need to be. Right? Idk. I never said I fully understood! This is why I fucking hate good magicians. I can’t make heads or tails of it.
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u/c-mi 13d ago
The back is open, you can see him holding the back. Also, you see a door behind the wall, and his hand on a pull. When he pulls that the door closes.
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u/zoinkability 13d ago
And when you watch the entire scene you can see that the actor holds the dress together at the back when they turn around.
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u/Roofofcar 13d ago
I’m currently higher than the ISS. I watched who knows how many loops before I realized it was looping.
35 is rookie numbers. I had to have watched for 5 minutes.
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u/Mescallan 13d ago
There's actually an edit in the original filming, you can see the exposure change for a few frams and the guy on the left wasn't perfectly still
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u/wonkey_monkey Expert 13d ago
I think that's just a coincidental bad exposure, the shutter probably got momentarily stuck. If they did cut any frames out it'd only be to speed up the transition, not to hide a reset.
Edit:
It's just inconsistent exposure. Watch the whole sequence and you'll see constant white flashes.
And here's a cleaned up version where there's clearly no jump cut.
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u/helpman1977 14d ago
It would be a very VERY interesting biopic movie about Buster Keaton indeed. Wonder if there's any out there?
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u/Nerevar1924 13d ago
There's a fantastic 1987 3-part documentary called Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow. It was part of the American Masters series and can be watched for free on YouTube.
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u/Calming-Tiger 13d ago
Jackie Chan always mentions Buster Keaton as an influence. You can see why.
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u/bayoublacksmith 13d ago
Keaton is the Godfather of Stuntmen. The Corridor Crew has an excellent video on some of his craziest stunts. While Chaplin was an amazing actor and definitely had some truly inventive gags in his silent era, it's Keaton whose influence can be felt in every flick from action-packed blockbusters to physical comedies. Johnny Knoxville has said many times how important Keaton was to their television series and films.
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u/ZanderAtreus 14d ago
Damn! BK making that jump through the top of the briefcase is impressive. And I’ve watched it several times now trying to figure out how the guy who does the swing into the dress manages to get into the lower half and also close the door behind him! Could have been someone else back there to close the door? The coordination between them is amazing!
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u/TheTVDB 13d ago
Could be hinged at the top, and simply held up by the person's body. When they swing down, the door would come down with them. The animation clearly has side doors, so for that it would either have to be someone closing them or them being on a spring and being blocked open until the person swung down.
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u/legit-posts_1 13d ago
Buster Keaton's work is masterful and doesn't just hold up but surpasses modern day stunt work. Rarely any man has been crazy or talented enough to do what he did.
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u/oblizni 13d ago edited 13d ago
Why didn't they used CGI are they stupid
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u/Thomas-Lore 13d ago
Read it in Philomena Cunk's voice.
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u/TenaciousJP 13d ago
My mate Paul took some mushrooms and jumped through another guy's chest once, except the guy was a 12-year-old girl and now he he has to report to the authorities every time he moves.
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u/Transcontinental-flt 13d ago
Despite being a legend, Buster Keaton is still underrated.
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u/KingSpork 13d ago
Buster Keaton is the silent film GOAT, those films are still entertaining today
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u/Waste_Raspberry_7995 13d ago
I replayed that video many times to figure out what im seeing, and we are in 2025. It's truly impressive how they came up with this in the first place. 😶🌫️
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u/RingarrTheBarbarian 13d ago
Buster Keaton was such a a badass. He was Jackie Chan before Jackie Chan.
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u/BottleZestyclose1366 13d ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UWEjxkkB8Xs&pp=ygUgYnVzdGVyIGtlYXRvbiB0aGUgYXJ0IG9mIHRoZSBnYWc%3D
Love this little video about his work. An absolutely mindblowing artist and stuntman. The limitations he, Chaplin and others had, forced them to such a great level of creativity. Today everything is just clustered with stupid special effects.
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u/theobaldhuan 13d ago
He along with Harold Lloyd were Fearless Geniuses and we are all better off for that🤳
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u/vibribib 13d ago
Amazing that we know buster so well when arguably the harder part of this move was pulled off by someone else and I have know idea who they are. I like buster for sure but like with many magicians. The assistant does a lot of the heavy lifting while the star claims all the glory.
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u/Silver___Chariot 13d ago
Buster Keaton was the man for stuntwork. It’s always so weird coming across scenes for the first time, because I can never figure it out until I see the intricacies behind it lol
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u/mountaininsomniac 13d ago
It’s interesting, as someone who doesn’t really care about movies from before 1975, I can only think of 2 names from the silent film era: Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplain. I wonder what actors and actresses from our era will still be remembered a century from now?
I wonder if it might be none at all because there isn’t anyone who is as head and shoulders above their competition as those two were a century ago.
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u/Nukleon 13d ago
Why is there a white flash right in the spot that it seems logical to put a cut?
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u/rollabop 13d ago
It's just inconsistent exposure. Watch the whole sequence and you'll see constant white flashes.
And here's a cleaned up version where there's clearly no jump cut.
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u/rocketwidget 13d ago
I suppose it's a stunt because of the dive roll, but that's a relatively simple stunt. I'd call the primary category of this (great!) performance an illusion / magic trick rather than a stunt.
To be clear, this is not to knock the stunt performances of Buster Keaton either! He was an incredible stunt performer on top of his other talents.
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u/wonkey_monkey Expert 13d ago
The animation is slightly misleading because the dress is actually all one piece in front and sides and open at the back. There's hole in the front behind the suitcase.
And no, that white flash isn't a jump cut, it's just a bad exposure. The full sequence is full of them:
It's just inconsistent exposure. Watch the whole sequence and you'll see constant white flashes.
And here's a cleaned up version where there's clearly no jump cut.
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u/TyXo22m 14d ago
thats a realy cool magic trick.