A Man Who Fell From The Sky
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Running Time 60 minutes
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Genre Documentary - Biography
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Language English
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Completed July 1, 1984, United States
A daring Czech Judo champion escapes Communism, becomes a noted Hollywood stuntman, befriends movie icon Chuck Connors who hosts this look at his world-record stunts. A rare glimpse into the mind and body of a pro stuntman.
A MAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY (1984)
A Stuntman’s Life At the Height of Danger
The story of how a daring Czech Judo champion, with dreams of freedom, escaped from Communist Eastern Europe and trained for years to become one of the most respected stuntmen in Hollywood.
Movie icon Chuck Connors, who befriended Peter Horak and worked on movies with him, hosts. Connors shows what kind of guts and training it takes to perform awesome stunts that few others would attempt—all done with equipment of his own making.
Peter sets a world record by jumping a 2000 pound boat 120 feet through the air. He engulfs his body in flames. But the height of his daring is a spectacular 200-foot fall from the top of the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas. This is a rare glimpse into the mind and body of a professional movie stuntman.
At the height of his career, Peter Horak was pushing the limits of what a professional stuntman could attempt. In 1980, On Location – The Film and Videotape Production Magazine featured Horak while he was preparing for A Man Who Fell From the Sky, documenting the extraordinary physical challenges behind the production. The article describes a series of stunts including car rolls, explosions, fire burns and high falls, presenting Horak as both an all-round stuntman and sportsman.
One of the production’s defining moments was Horak’s attempt to break the existing 110-foot boat-jump record, previously associated with the James Bond film Live and Let Die. The magazine documented the specially constructed ramp, preparation by Horak and his stunt crew, and the record-setting jump itself. These surviving photographs and press reports offer a remarkable glimpse behind the scenes of A Man Who Fell From the Sky—and into an era when spectacular movie stunts depended on physical courage, engineering, precision and very real risk.
On Location, The Film and Videotape production Magazine, July 1980
About Peter Horak
Born in Prague during the war era, Peter Horak is a filmmaker and legendary stunt professional whose career spans decades of international cinema. After escaping Czechoslovakia in 1968, he defected to Canada and later moved to Los Angeles, where he trained at Paul Stader’s stunt school and began working in Hollywood.
A former Czech national judo champion, Horak combined athletic skill with mechanical expertise, designing and building his own stunt equipment and performing some of the industry’s most dangerous stunts. In 1980, he set a world record with a 120-foot jet-boat jump, surpassing a record established during Live and Let Die and earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for 16 years.
Directed by Mark Morris and starring Brad Bovee and Chuck Connors, A Man Who Fell From the Sky returns to audiences more than four decades after its original production, offering a rare look back at the extraordinary world of professional stuntman Peter Horak.
Blending documentary storytelling with spectacular real-life stunt footage, the film revisits an era when movie stunts were achieved through physical skill, precision, courage, and very real risk. From record-breaking jumps to fire and high-fall sequences, A Man Who Fell From the Sky brings Horak’s remarkable story back to the screen and preserves a fascinating chapter of Hollywood stunt and cinema history.
About the director
Mark H. L. Morris is a Los Angeles–based director of photography and producer whose career is deeply rooted in the horror genre. Born in Santa Monica, he began filmmaking in high school, writing, producing, and shooting his first short film, Dracula (1965). His early involvement with the Count Dracula Society (1966–1970) helped shape a lifelong engagement with horror cinema and gothic tradition.
His breakthrough amateur film, Terror of Transylvania (1967), a spoof-prequel to the Dracula legend, screened widely at schools, clubs, and early film festivals, leading to formal film studies at Loyola Marymount University (B.A., M.A., 1973). This work launched his professional career and ultimately brought him full circle to Die Hard Dracula.
Morris founded an independent production company in 1973, becoming an award-winning producer and director of commercials, corporate films, a feature film, and a sports documentary series. Since 1984, he has worked extensively as a freelance Director of Photography in feature films and television.
His career spans twenty-one 35mm feature films, over 200 commercials, and extensive documentary and docudrama work for major networks including HBO, Showtime, A&E, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and MSNBC.
