Back to the Future Part III was originally released in theaters on May 20, 1990. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the third entry in the series follows Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly as he travels back in time to 1885 in order to rescue Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) from certain death. The film was a critical and commercial success but ultimately proved to be the franchise’s final installment. Had it not been for a stroke of luck during production, though, it might’ve also ended up being the final film of Fox’s career.
In one scene that they shot in the winter of 1989, Marty gets chased down by an angry lynch mob. The people after him then string him up and attempt to hang him. Fortunately, Doc shows up just in the nick of time and shoots Marty down, saving the day—in the movie, anyway. Take a look at how it plays out below.
Things didn’t go too smoothly behind the scenes, however. In his 2002 book, Lucky Man: A Memoir, Fox breaks down how one shot in particular shows him sticking his hand between the rope and his neck. His entire body wasn’t meant to be seen on film at that point, so he was actually standing on a small wooden box for the first two takes. Although he was technically performing a stunt, the shot also happened to require a close-up of his face, and for that reason, his stunt double, Charlie Croughwell, wasn’t needed.
Fox couldn’t get the swinging effect to look realistic enough, so he offered to give it a try without having the box there to support him. It worked alright a couple of times, but on the third go-round, he miscalculated his hand placement under the rope. As a result, Fox found himself being legitimately hanged. The rope cut off his carotid artery and caused him to pass out as the cameras continued to roll.
“I swung, unconscious at the end of the rope for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of mine though he was, realized even I wasn’t that good an actor,” Fox later wrote of the incident. Thankfully, they were able to get him down before any serious damage was done, and the film was completed without any injuries.
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