A brush with death

Considering Back to the Future: Part III is perhaps the most action-packed movie of the franchise, it won’t come as a surprise to hear that not all of the stunt sequences went to plan.

In the scene where Buford ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen tries to lynch Marty before he’s being freed by Doc, the rope became too tight around Michael J. Fox’s neck, causing the actor to suffocate and pass out.

Luckily, Robert Zemeckis noticed something was wrong in the nick of time, and quickly pulled Fox down from the rope.

The actor recounted: “This worked well for the next couple of takes, but on the third I miscalculated the positioning of my hand. Noose around my neck, dangling from the gallows pole, my carotid artery was blocked, causing me briefly to pass out.

“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.”