I saw this movie as a child, and it was enthralling. One of my favorites when it came to the big mounted “epic”. This is when I started to realize that the classics could be cool. Although there are a lot of stunts in this film, there’s one that stands out for me and that is Paddy Ryan’s fall from the castle. This was reported to be the highest fall from a castle when he performed the stunt.
Paddy Ryan (born Frank Singletary) was one of the leading worldwide stunt men to come out of England. The men who thrived in the early European epics, war films and bond films. Stunt men the likes of Jock Easton, Joe Powell, George Leech, Ken Buckle and Vic Armstrong. They would travel far and wide, often on their own dime and stay on location for weeks, sometimes months at a time, competing for the one small “stunt adjustment”, as they called it.
Information on these stunt performers are rare and very hard to come by. A lot of these early stuntmen and women have died and taken their legacy with them, but there are a few members of the stunt crusade that are shouting their names from the rooftops. Recent autobiographies by Hal Needham and Vic Armstrong are helping to shine the light on some of these fantastic stories and the people who truly lived them.
Ivanhoe was directed by Richard Thorpe for MGM.
Things to look up (click on item to go to IMDB page or Website):
Glossary of stunt terms as defined by www.RichmondStunts.com – Stunt Adjustment: stunt adjustments are an additional fee paid to the stunt performer in addition to the minimum daily rate to compensate for more dangerous stunts or when the stunt performer exceeds expectations of the daily rate and the budget allows for extra monies to be paid. Performing utility (basic) stunts such as playing a bad guy that takes a couple punches or falling down are usually covered by the daily rate. But for the fun stuff like being set on fire or falling off a roof, a negotiation between the stunt coordinator, stunt performer and production will take place. (typically the coordinator does this on larger shows). The factors used when determining the justified amount of adjustment will be based on technical difficulty, level of danger, etc.
