Event

THE DEVIL AT YOUR HEELS

Dir. Robert Fortier, 1981
Canada, 102 min.
In English

"I still believe that Evel Knievel is the second best daredevil in the world. And I say that because I feel that Im number one."

The late 70s/early 80s was arguably the golden age of jumping vehicles over stuff, and it should come as no shock the Canadians had their own golden boy, Ken "The Mad Canadian" Carter. This National Film Board of Canada documentary examines Carter and his crew as he prepared for his greatest feat ever: jumping the mile-wide St. Lawrence River in a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental. This jump became an endless series of problems: ABC pulled out of sponsoring the jump for Wide World Of Sports, wind speed called off multiple jumps, his protege' Kenny Powers secretly tried and failed the jump after believing Carter lost his nerve, Evel "World's Biggest Asshole" Knievel badmouthed him at every turn, but dreams never die. Stuntpeople, sadly, die: two years after the filming of this documentary, Ken Cater was killed instantly attempting to jump a pond.