Behind-the-scenes footage from Batman Returns shows Michelle Pfeiffer demonstrating tremendous whip skills as she completed her iconic "mannequin head strike" attack from the 1992 blockbuster in just a single take.
Author Mikey Walsh posted the footage on his Twitter account, which shows Pfeiffer pulling off the stunt in a single take and then receiving roaring applause from the crew when the scene finished.
In the film, Pfeiffer plays Selina Kyle, the timid secretary to business tycoon Max Shreck. When she discovers that Shreck is actually evil, he throws her out of a window. She hits enough canvas awnings on the way down that her fall was broken just enough that she was able to survive. She suffered a head injury, though, and after she was surrounded by a group of cats on the ground, Kyle becomes unhinged and creates a vinyl costume and take on the identity of Catwoman to achieve revenge on Shreck.
In one memorable scene, she blows up one of Schreck's department stores, but not before using a whip to decapitate four mannequins before she then uses the whip as a jump rope and skips away.
Pfeiffer did her own whip stunts. She explained her training to The Hollywood Reporter a few years ago, ""I trained for months with the whip master. On our first day together, I caught his face with the whip and it drew blood. It completely shattered me. I was very nervous on my first day of shooting. I'd gotten pretty good with the whip, but when you show up…you don't anticipate all the lights everywhere. They were set up in places that prevented me from hitting my marks with the whip. So we had to rework the lighting again and again.”
Still, as seen in the aforementioned behind-the-scenes footage, Pfeiffer nailed the stunt in a single take.
It is worth noting that it appears that director Tim Burton used more than a single take for the final shot that made it into the film. That doesn't take anything at all away from how impressive Pfeiffer's whip skills were in the behind-the-scenes footage. Pfeiffer actually still has the whip from the film in her closet at home. She broke it out in a recent interview and showed that even now she had some impressive whip skills.
Source: Twitter