The “hysterically goofy” movie that almost killed Jack Nicholson: “There’s no stunt doubling”
Jack Nicholson’s knocking on 90 now, and when you think about it, he’s done more than just leave a mark on cinema – he’s helped shape the whole thing. He’s a proper legend, one of the last living links to an era of filmmaking that’s all but turned to folklore. Truth be told, we ought to savour him while we’ve still got him.
Before he was the industry titan he is today, Nicholson paid the bills by starring in a number of low-budget, oft-forgotten B-movies. He routinely teamed up with the legendary Roger Corman, who played a major role in getting his career off the ground.
Alongside Little Shop of Horrors and a take on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, Corman also directed the future Oscar winner in a 1963 horror flick called The Terror. Ah, the ’60s – a time when you could just name a film after the emotion you fancied the audience to feel. Simpler days, those.
In his biography of Nicholson, Five Easy Decades, journalist Dennis McDougal wrote about some of Nicholson’s experiences on The Terror. He focused on a scene that required the actor to wade out into the ocean to rescue a character named Helene, who was played by Nicholson’s wife at the time, Sandra Knight. This section of the movie was overseen by a young Francis Ford Coppola, who had been working as Corman’s assistant. Before he could get his own mythical career off the ground, Coppola very nearly killed one of the greatest actors of his generation.
“I almost drowned out there in the ocean,” Nicholson revealed. “I was supposed to go out into the water to find Helene. This was Francis’s idea”.
Adding, “I went out into that big fucking arch up there in Big Sur [California]. This is wintertime and there’s no stunt doubling… I came flying out of there and just threw that fucking costume off while I ran, freezing to death… this was my fucking wife and it looked so hysterically goofy.”
The character Nicholson was playing in the movie, which is about a French soldier who becomes the target of a shapeshifting succubus, was pretty ridiculous. The movie is set in the Napoleonic era, so the poor star had to wade into the Pacific Ocean wearing a vast array of heavy clothes and accessories. He remembers experiencing a “split second of panic” when a massive wave hit him and dragged him under the water, but the spirit of Napoleon must have been watching over him, as he managed to survive.
It wasn’t all bad news on set. During their excursion to Big Sur, Sandra got pregnant with the couple’s first child. Jennifer Nicholson was born just three months after The Terror hit cinema screens. If you don’t care about children, then the film is also significant for being the only time Coppola ever got a chance to direct Nicholson in anything. Although given that he damn-near killed him, it’s easy to see why they never teamed up again.
Working on The Terror brought Nicholson the highest of highs and (very nearly) the lowest of lows. Looking back on the film with the benefit of hindsight, the acting demigod seemed pleased that he’d put himself through the ordeal, remarking, “They don’t make movies like The Terror anymore.”
