Should there be a Best Stunt Choreography category at the Academy Awards? That’s the question prompted by the amazing stunt work seen in recent years, especially the groundbreaking stunts seen in the John Wick films. The Wick films, directed by former stuntpeople David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, are wall-to-wall action films, featuring (mostly) practical effects and stunts.
To answer the above question: Yes, there should be an Academy Award for stunt work, just like for decades there should have been an award for Makeup effects (finally established in 1983). And if the Motion Picture Academy knew what they were doing, they should name it after Hal Needham.
Director and writer Hal Needham started his career a stuntman, and that is how he met his partner in film mischief Burt Reynolds. Needham loved movies, loved being a stunt man, and when he finally hit it big with 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit Needham got the greenlight to make a movie that celebrated the world of the stuntman. The original title, The Stuntman, was rejected and so they named the film after the title character: Hooper.
(Two years after Hooper, a different film named The Stunt Man, starring Peter O’Toole, was released – I write about that movie here).
Hooper is all about Sonny Hooper, played by Reynolds, as he fights his age and injuries while being threatened by a younger healthier generation of stunt men, personified by Ski (played by Jan-Michael Vincent). The plot is threadbare, but when you have a cast like they have.. Who cares?
Besides leads Reynolds and Vincent, you have:
• Robert Klein (playing the movie-within-the-movies director, an unsubtle parody of Peter Bogdanovich)
• Sally Field (again playing Reynold’s love interest),
• Brian Keith (as Field’s father, a semi-retired stunt man)
• James Best (playing Hooper’s right hand man and best friend)
• John Marley (the studio head from The Godfather, here playing a movie producer)
• Terry Bradshaw (in his first acting role)
• and Adam West (playing Adam West, long before he did on Family Guy).
The main cast are surrounded by stuntpeople, who show off and do various “gags” throughout. The final sequence involves an incredibly choreographed car chase (filmed in Tuscaloosa Alabama) that culminates in a rocket-powered bridge jump that (if it goes wrong) could leave Hooper paralyzed. The final scenes are worth the ticket price itself, and some of the footage has been reused on multiple TV shows and movies since (most notably The Fall Guy, a semi-ripoff of Hooper).
While the movie is mostly played for laughs, there are some very somber moments, and while I was rewatching the film with my wife she turned to me (late in the film) and said, “he’s going to die at the end, isn’t he?” That is how successful the movie is at threading the needle – Unlike similar farces Reynolds and Needham made after this film, Hooper is somewhat grounded and the fate of the main character is not assured.
Spoilers: Hooper doesn’t die in the end, but watching the film today, 42 years after its release I quickly realized that most of the cast are no longer with us. Needham died a few years ago, Vincent last year, and Reynolds passed away in 2018. Bradshaw, Klein and Field are the only ones left.
So, in closing: If you haven’t seen Hooper before, seek it out. And stay through the end, to see the credits. Needham made sure every stuntperson who worked on the film got listed in the credits, something that in 1978 rarely happened. As you read the list of names, take a moment to appreciate the talented performers who risk their life in film and TV to entertain us.
And Academy, just do it: Give them an award. They deserve it.