10 Genius Suspense Tricks That Made Movies Great
2. Buster Keaton Put Himself In Actual Danger With Life-Threatening Stunts - Steamboat Bill, Jr.
There are all sorts of secret tricks filmmakers can employ to get audiences feeling queasy and anxious, but there's perhaps nothing as simple as putting an actual human life in danger for real.
Almost a century before Tom Cruise clung to the side of the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Buster Keaton carved a name out for himself as cinema's greatest daredevil - a title he still claims to this very day.
Back in Keaton's era, health and safety practises weren't quite what they are today, which combined with Keaton's penchant for ingeniously death-defying stunts, made checking out every new Keaton picture a sure exercise in gut-wrenching anxiety.
This culminated in 1928's Steamboat Bill, Jr., which climaxed with Keaton standing on a marker while a gigantic, two-ton building facade fell on top of him.
The only thing saving Keaton from sure death was an open window, scarcely large enough to fit his body, ensuring that if he was just slightly off the mark, he would've been instantly crushed.
Even watching the movie today knowing that Keaton survived it and lived long afterwards, it's a deeply sweaty-palmed experience, simply to know that someone was brave (or daft) enough to get so close to death simply for the sake of a movie.
This is the tactile, visceral thrill that comes from great, practical stunt-work, and what CGI so often fails to replicate.