MovieChat Forums > The Eiger Sanction (1975) Discussion > Article by embittered stunt climber who ...

Article by embittered stunt climber who worked on the movie

posted 4 years ago by BeaSouth (3352)
8 replies | jump to latest

The article was written by Chic Scott in the 1975/1976 edition of Ascent. He was embittered about nearly everything with the making of the climbing scenes. He was angry about Hollywood commercializing mountain climbing. He lamented about the movie “showing the wrong techniques and attitudes“ which he believed would be mimicked by others who would be killed. He talked about the real death of one of the stunt climbers and how the production continued to use ropes oozing with blood from real life accidents during the filming. He was embittered by the fact that it took a stunt climber dying before the movie company bought insurance for them; insurance that turned out to be worthless when he was injured on the ground. He had special criticism for Clint Eastwood. He believed Eastwood lacked a conscience apparently for continuing the movie despite all these issues. Scott felt that in trying to do all his own climbing and taking amateurish risks, Eastwood did not respect the climbing profession. The article is an interesting read and has some behind the scenes photos that show how they did the climbing stunts (you might have to use the reader view on your device to defeat a paywall)

https://rockandice.com/snowball/eiger-sanction/

[–] moviechatterer (15796) 4 years ago

interesting , thanks

[–] Adam60z (3774) 4 years ago

Interesting. I liked the film and didn't think of all those behind the scenes issues. Yes, it shows it was a realistic film and also shows the film business isn't necessarily all glamour. Whenever there are action films there is bound to be accidents (at least prior to CG). And yes, the producers try to cut costs with insurance, etc. But I doubt people saw this film and said let's go climb the Eiger and then got killed. There have been plenty of mountain climbing accidents and they don't have anything to do with this film, except the ones during filming. I personally would never go mountain climbing. Actually the son of Norgay, the first sherpa to climb Everest, has said if his father was alive to see all the commercialization and all the accidents he would not have climbed it.
By the way I've got George Kennedy's autograph, resume, and headshots. He was also in another film that had a stunt death: Flight of the Phoenix.

[–] BeaSouth (3352) 4 years ago

Great rebuttal about how no one is going to watch this movie and replicate bad climbing techniques on the Eiger to get hurt. A point like that makes it pretty clear this Chic Scott guy was a little full of himself

[–] Redsfan001 (6159) 4 years ago

I am guessing the paycheck difference between him and the actors might have also been a cause for his disgruntlement.

When a actor is getting paid 100x more than you...it can happen.

[–] BeaSouth (3352) 4 years ago

Yeah. And I think that people can be resentful when they have worked hard to acquire experience and education in a skill and some interloper comes in and gets accolades and credit. The whole article by Scott was pretty resentful and even he admits he was demoted on set for whatever angry criticisms he was making

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Thanks for pointing this out. I read it, but found it vague. He dislikes Eastwood, but seems angry at the world in general. I imagine he is a better climber than he is a writer.

[–] BeaSouth (3352) 4 years ago

This is a good take and I have to agree with you. I had to read some of the paragraphs a couple of times to grasp what the guy was trying to say

[–] FatDrunkAndStupi (34) 2 years ago

He sounds like one of those dudes who buys in to some romanticized, totally made up view of mountain climbing which he ironically got from Hollywood films. Martial artists from the 1970's used to be like that too.