Ken Carter wanted to launch a rocket-powered car a mile across the St. Lawrence River. He spent five years raising about $1 million, building the car and constructing a ten-storey take-off ramp for the attempt. This was not a comic-book stunt pitched for a movie: the National Film Board of Canada documented the real project in its 1981 film The Devil at Your Heels.
A new feature film, The Stunt Driver, brought Carter’s improbable ambition back into view with its September 25 release. But the underlying story is already a spectacle: a veteran daredevil, a river between Canada and the United States, a rocket car, and a ramp so large it became a project of its own.
The NFB’s documentary follows the years of preparation, including repeated attempts to secure financing and solve technical problems. The film’s official description says Carter’s plan took five years and required a million dollars. An older NFB account describes fuel tanks that repeatedly exploded during development. The dream kept moving forward even as the machinery, money and schedule resisted it.
The plan was to cross a river, not a movie set
Carter’s target was a roughly mile-wide stretch of the St. Lawrence near Morrisburg, Ontario, with the intended route carrying him from Canada toward the United States. His take-off ramp rose ten storeys. The car was specially built and rocket-powered. The scale of the preparation is what makes the story so difficult to dismiss as a boast: years of work and a real structure were assembled around the idea.
That still does not mean the jump was a safe or sensible plan. The NFB’s film presents a high-risk attempt, not an engineering endorsement. A rocket car has to reach the necessary speed, leave the ramp with the right trajectory and meet the landing conditions. A river crossing adds distance and consequences that make the stunt’s basic question hard to ignore: what happens if even one calculation is wrong?
Those practical problems give the story its second-paragraph life. Raising money is only the beginning when a project depends on a custom vehicle, a giant ramp, weather, a crew and a narrow window to attempt the stunt. The documentary records a long chain of setbacks rather than a simple countdown to a triumphant launch.
Evel Knievel came to inspect the dream
The plan also drew the attention of another famous daredevil. The NFB’s account says ABC sent Evel Knievel to inspect the project for its sports coverage. He arrived to find the ramp unfinished and rain disrupting the schedule, and he questioned whether the operation was ready. That visit puts a recognizable figure beside Carter’s unusual ambition, but the more revealing contrast is between the polished image of a stunt and the messy work required to make one possible.
In the 2026 film, Jay Baruchel plays Carter and Ben Foster portrays Knievel. The Associated Press described The Stunt Driver as a comic, affectionate portrait of Carter’s long-held aspiration. The movie is a new way into the story, not a substitute for the surviving record. The NFB documentary lets viewers see the project’s preparation and the people trying to make its pieces work.
The Devil at Your Heels is available through the National Film Board of Canada, which also posted the full documentary on its verified YouTube channel. It is useful viewing here because the actual ramp, car and production problems are the visual evidence—not merely illustrations added decades later.
The archival footage is the payoff
The most memorable image is not a poster for the new film. It is the contrast between the enormous ramp and the car waiting beneath it. The construction makes the ambition legible in one glance. The NFB’s archival footage also keeps the story grounded: we can watch the preparation rather than being asked to imagine that a daring pitch automatically became a successful feat.
That distinction matters because the title and premise can tempt a headline writer to promise a spectacular crossing. The verified story is about Carter’s attempt and the five-year project captured by the documentary. The film is based on that story, but a reader should not be told Carter completed the intended one-mile river jump if the article has not established that fact.
There is a human question underneath the hardware, too. Carter had spent years as a stunt driver and wanted one defining feat to make him a legend. That goal can look reckless from the outside and still be understandable as a person’s attempt to give a risky career a final, unforgettable chapter. The documentary’s value is that it lets viewers judge the obsession through the work, the delays and the people around it.
A true story already stranger than its movie version
The Stunt Driver gives Carter’s story a fresh audience, but the hook does not depend on the release date. A man really spent years trying to build a rocket car and a ten-storey ramp for a leap across an international river. Evel Knievel really came to look at the effort. A Canadian documentary crew was there long enough to turn the preparation into a feature-length record.
For fans of stunts, film history and odd real-world ambition, that is the payoff: the movie has an extraordinary premise because the underlying project did. The NFB archive preserves the evidence, and it is even more arresting than a logline. Carter’s dream was visible in wood, steel, fuel tanks and a ramp rising over the riverbank.
Sources: National Film Board of Canada: The Devil at Your Heels; Associated Press, TIFF coverage (Sept. 16, 2026); Independent Film Company release information (July 21, 2026); NFB’s full 1981 documentary on YouTube.
