The Devil at Your Heels
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| The Devil at Your Heels | |
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 Cover of The Devil At Your Heels |
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| Directed by | Robert Fortier |
| Produced by | Bill Brind, Robert Fortier, Barrie Howells and Adam Symansky |
| Narrated by | Gordon Pinsent |
| Starring | Ken Carter |
| Distributed by | Visionsmiths, Inc. |
| Release date(s) | 1981 |
| Running time | 1 hr 43 minutes |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Devil at Your Heels is a 1981 documentary that chronicles the attempt of stuntman and daredevil Ken Carter to jump a rocket-powered car over the St. Lawrence River--a distance of one mile, which would handily smash all existing records for jumping cars.
The documentary opens with some quick framing of the task, including footage of the ramp and the car to be used for the jump, and then chronicles how Ken Carter got his start as a daredevil, including footage of some early jumps. It then follows the ups and downs he experiences in his five-year journey to jump the river. He has a series of financial and technical obstacles. Technical problems include difficulties with the car (the fuel tank keeps blowing up) and the ramp he's planning to jump off (it's bumpy and not necessarily structurally sound). The financial problems are simpler; he keeps running out of money, and his backers are unhappy.
In the fifth year, everything is set, but two attemps are called off--one because of a short strike by the ground crew, and one because of weather (and perhaps because Carter loses his nerve). The backers, desperate to finish, believe that Carter has lost his nerve and call him to a meeting in another city, and then bring in another driver to attempt the jump.
Unfortunately, the bumps in the ramp have not been fixed, and as the car accelerates, it starts to shake itself to pieces and falls apart in midair. The parachutes deploy and the car lands in shallow water--the driver survives with eight broken vertebrae (he later recovers fully). The effort to make the jump is abandoned.
The film closes with Carter vowing to continue trying. However, a few years after the movie was made, the ramp was demolished, and then Carter was killed shortly thereafter attempting another stunt.
