In one of the most famous scenes from the Buster Keaton film “The Three Ages,” Keaton attempts to leap off a board from one building to the next but falls short, instead plummeting down through a series of awnings and then catching himself on a drain pipe that perilously pulls away from the wall. But all Keaton and the crew initially planned for was that first jump, according to History Daily.

Keaton ended up not jumping far enough and really did fall quite a ways down, fortunately into a waiting net. Thankfully, the actor’s injuries only delayed production for a few days, and the stunt didn’t potentially kill Keaton and cut short a career just kicking off. When Keaton saw the footage of his very real fall, he decided to work it into the movie, adding the awnings, the drain pipe, and the flying through a lower window as an afterthought to create a much more memorable sequence in the process.

In yet another stunt executed with such casual grace as to belie the immensity of the challenge and danger, not to mention the sheer strength required, in the 1922 short film “Cops,” Buster Keaton evades a swarm of chasing police officers by hitching a ride with a passing car. But he does so by grabbing onto the moving vehicle with one hand and being pulled from the frame with his feet flying in the air behind him.

An analyst with a background in physics writing for Wired calculated that, based on Keaton’s height and the size of the vehicle in the scene, the stunt was accomplished without camera tricks, like a change in the frame rate. Therefore what you see is what really happened: The actor grabbed onto the side of a moving car with one hand and zipped away down the street.

Despite his willingness to risk life and limb in the name of a great stunt, Buster Keaton did not actually have a death wish. Thus, when plausible, he did employ safety gear, and that was the case in a scene in “Our Hospitality,” where Keaton braves a rushing river. The already dangerous stunt became an actual life or death situation, however, when the submerged safety line used to keep Keaton from being swept away down the raging Truckee River snapped, sending the actor down through the rapids.

Keaton managed to cling to a branch as he rushed past it, having already endured bruising injuries caused by impacts with rocks. The filming went on, and as so often happened in Keaton’s films, the shot with the unexpected twist remained in the final cut of the movie, according to Silent Film. The viewer watching closely can see the moment the cable snaps: Keaton turns about to look at the camera, his eyes wide in genuine terror. As the story goes, while pulling himself out of the river, he was surrounded by dozens of water snakes. They caused him no further injury, fortunately, but unfortunately the serpents were not caught on film.

Buster Keaton displayed not only his willingness to put himself at physical risk but also his comedic timing in a scene in “Three Ages” wherein a “very fragile car” literally falls apart around the actor (via Rotten Tomatoes). In the scene, a surprised Keaton has a convertible in which he is riding fall to pieces all around him, including all four wheels detaching, the axles splitting, and the sides of the vehicle coming apart.

He pops up next to the pile that used to be a car, still holding the steering wheel, which he then comically hurls to the ground. The falling apart car gag would be used in other films of the era, but no other actor arguably pulled it off as well as The Great Stone Face, the nickname Keaton earned for his famed deadpan acting even in remarkable scenes, according to The New York Times. “Three Ages” was Keaton’s first feature as both star and director (and writer, in fact) and is not considered his best work, but it very much established the young filmmaker when released in the fall of 1923.

While Buster Keaton is best known for doing all of his own stunts without the use of trick photography, he was not opposed to using camera tricks and editing when doing so would yield to the best scenes for the film. Thus, according to Insider, Keaton employed some then revolutionary camera tricks in the filming of the 1924 film, “Sherlock Jr.” He and his crew filmed several scenes from the movie’s famous car (and motorcycle) chase in reverse, thus creating a hair-raising, intense chase scene without putting the star in any real danger.

In the most dramatic clip from the chase, Keaton looks to cut right in front of a speeding train, narrowly dodging death. In fact, the train and Keaton were both moving backward, and there was no risk to anyone involved in the production. This sequence, which mesmerized at the time and is still impressive, could be considered one of the first great chase scenes of American cinema.

In one of but many physical stunts in the 1928 film “The Cameraman,” Buster Keaton rides a collapsing scaffold to the ground, his character never once stopping the action of cranking the camera until the structure breaks apart around him, and he is thrown to the ground himself. According to Cineaste, the film was directed by Edward Sedgwick, though it’s widely accepted that Keaton co-directed, and he clearly had a hand in planning the comedic stunts — the film coming at the apex of his silent movie career (and near the end of that era, in fact).

During the collapsing stage stunt, Keaton perfectly maintains his stoic, deadpan composure — the very type of delivery for which he earned the nickname Old Stone Face in the first place. Also in keeping with his usual operating procedure, the stunt was a one-shot deal, filmed in real time without multiple takes or rehearsals (via Open Culture). This was very much the way so many of Keaton’s stunts were pulled off, largely because in many cases the set or prop being used in the scene was completely destroyed in the execution of the stunt, as happened with everything from cars to building façades to an entire train.