00:00This is Buster Keaton, and this is a real 4,000 pound wall about to fall over him.
00:06If he stands exactly in the right spot, the window frame misses his head by just two inches.
00:12If he's off by even one step, this becomes his last movie.
00:16And here's the wild part. This was filmed in the 1920s, long before green screen or CGI were even
00:22a thing. In this video, we're breaking down the most incredible stunts ever caught on film,
00:27by Hollywood legends Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd. And once you see how
00:32they pulled it off, the behind the scenes magic might impress you even more than the stunts themselves.
00:38If you've ever been on this channel before, there's a high chance you've seen this clip already.
00:42And by looking at it without context, it's hard to understand how they pulled this off.
00:47The scene is from Sherlock Jr. from 1924, and we see the main character played by Buster Keaton
00:53being chased by two characters. He meets a man who tells him to jump through his briefcase,
00:58with nowhere else to go. Keaton goes for it, and when the man walks away, he's nowhere to be seen.
01:04And even now, a hundred years later, this stunt still looks impossible, especially when you realize
01:10they pulled it off without CGI, and without a single cut. The man is actually laying his feet on a
01:16support behind the wall, and only his head is sticking out. He's also holding onto two handles,
01:23invisible in the film. But if you look closely, you can see them sticking out right here.
01:29There is also a trap door in the wall, which allows Buster Keaton to jump through the briefcase,
01:33and on through the wall. As soon as Keaton is through, the man drops his feet down,
01:37and the door closes behind him. You can also see him holding onto the dress,
01:41when he turns around to not reveal it was open. Let's see them side by side in full speed.
01:48If you think this is an impressive camera trick, just wait until you see the one from Charlie Chaplin.
01:52But first, let's move over to another Hollywood legend, Harold Lloyd.
01:56One of his most famous scenes is this one, from his 1923 film, Safety Last.
02:02In the story, Harold's friend Bill is offered $500 to climb the Bolton building.
02:07But because Bill is being chased by the police, Harold ends up having to make the climb himself.
02:12They plan for Bill to take over after the first story, but every time they try to switch,
02:17something gets in the way, turning it into an iconic comedy sequence.
02:21He finally makes it to the top where Harold almost falls off the building,
02:24but grabs onto a clock mounted on the wall.
02:27This scene was also filmed in a very clever way.
02:30It looks like Harold is hanging from a tall building, but if we zoom out,
02:34we can see that they built a full set on the roof of a building.
02:37They also built a small camera tower to get the right angle and sell the illusion.
02:42If anything went wrong, Harold had a very short distance to safety.
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03:26Charlie Chaplin is probably the most famous actor of the silent film era,
03:31and with so many incredible stunts and iconic scenes,
03:34he definitely earned the title of Hollywood legend.
03:36If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out the official Charlie Chaplin YouTube channel.
03:41It's a true goldmine of entertainment.
03:43But for this video, we're focusing on one specific scene from modern times.
03:48Chaplin's character gets a job as a night watchman in a department store.
03:52He finds a pair of roller skates in the toy department,
03:54and while trying to impress a girl, he doesn't notice the danger behind him.
03:58He even blindfolds himself and keeps skating near what looks like a deadly drop.
04:03But what's the trick here?
04:04They actually used a technique called matte painting.
04:07If we zoom out, we can see a glass plate placed in front of the camera,
04:11where they've painted the floor below.
04:13So in reality, there's no gap behind Chaplin,
04:16and he was completely safe while filming.
04:18This technique was used for the first time in 1907,
04:22and has been used in classics like Raiders of the Lost Ark,
04:24the original King Kong, Star Wars, and Titanic.
04:28To show you how it works, here's a simple example I made.
04:31Let's say I want to add a new floor to this building.
04:34What they did back in the day was to paint this floor on glass in front of the camera
04:38to match up perfectly to the background.
04:40Let's go back to the king of epic stunts, Buster Keaton.
04:44This stunt is from his 1922 film, Daydreams.
04:47In classic Buster Keaton style, he's being chased by the police.
04:51In an attempt to get away, he grabs onto a streetcar,
04:54moving quickly down the street, and pulls himself in and away from the police.
04:58It's very hard to spot how they did this stunt,
05:01but if you look closely at the bottom of his suit, you can see a small wire attached.
05:05And if you take a closer look at the ground,
05:07you can also see the shadow of the pulley system used to lift him up.
05:10I created an animation to show this trick side by side in real time.
05:14In the animation, I made the wire much thicker so you can see how it worked,
05:18but during filming, the wire was much thinner,
05:20and almost invisible thanks to the motion in the background.
05:23Then we have this iconic scene from Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill from 1928.
05:28A storm is roaring through the town, and Keaton's character wakes up in a hospital bed,
05:33just as the walls and roof are blown away by the wind.
05:36His bed gets caught by the wind too, and he's dragged through the city.
05:40Eventually, he ends up in front of a building about to collapse.
05:44His bed blows away.
05:45Keaton stands up, and the entire wall falls towards him.
05:49Passing by with just two inches of clearance on each side,
05:52let's hear how Buster Keaton himself explained this stunt.
05:56We built the window so that I had a clearance of two inches on each shoulder,
05:59and the top missed my head by two inches, and the bottom my heels by two inches.
06:03We marked that ground out, and drive big nails where my two heels are going to be.
06:08Then you put the house back up in position while they finished building it.
06:11The wall was hinged at the bottom, and held in place by three ropes.
06:15Hiding on the roof, three crew members stood ready to cut the ropes the moment the director called action.
06:20If you look closely, you can also spot another rope here,
06:23probably pulling the wall away from the building.
06:26The stunt was a success, and Keaton walked away without a scratch.
06:30So even with all the technology we have today, it's still hard to believe
06:34what these legends pulled off a century ago.
06:36They didn't have visual effects to fall back on, every stunt was real, every risk was real.
06:41And maybe that's why, even a hundred years later, we still hold our breath watching them.
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