Eddie Kidd 1978

Directed by Peter Greenaway

At the age of 18, stunt cyclist Eddie Kidd had already broken world records, been a stunt double for Harrison Ford and released a couple of singles. Yet this profile piece for the COI cinemagazine series “This Week in Britain” offers glimpses that his high life had both its ups and downs. A record-breaking jump of 24 cars was to be the big attraction of a May bank holiday at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu but torrential rain scuppered plans. Kidd returned on the 4th June for a second attempt but with a shoulder injury that you see aggravated here, which prevented a planned second jump and again disappointed audiences. The person tasked with turning all these travails into a light-hearted snippet for overseas audiences was Peter Greenaway, who edited hundreds of stories like this before making arthouse feature hits such as The Draughtman’s Contract (1982).