You might not recognise the name Maidstone - a movie directed by Norman Mailer from 1970 - but you may well recognise a distinctive scene from it. It's a sequence that has been doing the rounds on internet forums for years - a scene where two grown men grapple around with one another in a field; screaming, panting, and punching whilst women and children wail around them. The two men are Rip Torn and Norman Mailer himself - engaged in a furious and authentic fight that occurred during the filming of the final scene of Maidstone. Ugly, rough, and very real, this infamous fight took place when Torn thumped Mailer across the head with a hammer, stating that he wanted to "kill the character" that Mailer was playing. The director responded by chowing down on Torn's ear; ultimately ripping out a piece of flesh and send the pair tumbling to ground. Whilst the blood of two famous faces dribbled into the green grass of the countryside, a cameraman got it all on tape, and Mailer decided to include the footage in the final release of Maidstone - despite the actors spitting their real names at one another during the scrap. Some have debated whether the scene was planned all along. This seems unlikely, but whichever way you choose to look at it, the two stars are quite legitimately attempting to harm one another. Torn's wild, arching eyebrows depict a man teetering somewhere between being uncontrollably angry and certifiably insane. Either way, he doesn't look like someone you ought to be fighting with. Whether this makes Mailer brave or mad is up to you.
