i was impressed with james coburn's stuntwork in the fight scenes, his physcicality and willingness to do all the work. it reminded me of old buster keaton movies in a way. i think coburn could have been a silent film physical comedy actor or a martial arts film star. i'm happy with the career choices he made (except in the 80s but that was hardly his fault) but i'm just saying he was good enough to do those things.
shareCoburn could have done anything he wanted. His skills had no limits :)
shareJ.C. did train with Bruce Lee.
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Coburn was a good martial artist; however, if you look closely, you'll see that he is doubled for most of the stunt work, especially in the gymnasium sequence.
"Duck, I says..."
That's one of the big disappointments of the film. They could have designed the action scenes around what Coburn could actually do rather than what we got. These fight scenes were more designed to show off comical gags, not gags in the sense that a stuntman would use the term.
So much was shot in shadow or with the double's back to us, with a close-up of Coburn at the end of the stunt. It's no wonder that he didn't want to do a third film between the decline between the two films and his being rather furious with Fox for using the title that it did. He thought it a poor twist on "In like Flynn" and noted his own admiration for his fellow actor.
It ain't easy being green, or anything else, other than to be me
This movie was silly . . . but still fun.
It's standard Hollywood practice to use stunt doubles for lead actors in fights or potentially hazardous scenes. If Coburn had busted an arm, for instance, the entire production would've been held up for weeks - at a minimum. True, Bruce Lee's movies consisted almost ENTIRELY of fights, but the risk remained.
Agreed. Coburn's martial arts prowess is very impressive indeed.
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