THE RAVAGERS

US, 1979, 90 minutes, Colour.
Richard Harris, Art Carney, Anne Turkel, Anthony James, Alana Stewart, Woody Strode, Ernest Borgnine, Seymour Cassel.
Directed by Richard Compton.

Ravagers is an unusual film for Richard Harris and Art Carney. It is set in a post-apocalyptic future. Two gangs roam the world, one vengeful types, the other a hippie type. The film shows their confrontations – as well as a group of people trying to find their way to some kind of paradise – called The Land of Genesis. (This description has echoes of Mad Max 2 which was to be produced two years later.)

The film is routine in its way – though interesting as a sign of the times, especially of the 80s with the Italian spaghetti-type apocalyptic films.

The film was directed by Richard Compton, more a television director who made a number of features in the 1970s, making an impact with Macon County Line and its sequel, Return to Macon County.

1. An interesting example of science fiction, futuristic predictions, doom and pessimism? The quality of imagination brought to this feature?

2. The blend of entertainment, message, warning? A futuristic fable? The tone of the title?

3. Panavision colour photography, the sets - the future world, the decimated cities and squalor, the abandoned mill, the devastated countryside? Natural features - caves, quarries? The contrast with the ship? How well did the film immerse the audience in this future? The score?

4. The atmosphere of a destroyed world and its implications about present behaviour and destructiveness? Individuals lost in the destroyed city? The effect on their lives? Survival, scavenging for food? The precarious existence? Victims being hunted? Falk and Miriam within this situation? The violence inherent in the scavenging, the desperation? Memories of happier times? Loneliness, fear? The possibility of finding a new uncontaminated place?

5. The contrast with the ravagers - the overtones of the gangs, ugliness, the chase and violence, the attempts on Falk's life, the rape and death of Miriam? Their marauding, drunkenness? Falk's killing their member with the vicious consequences?

6. A vengeance thriller, the chase? The ravagers searching for their victim and their relentlessness?

7. The film's focus on the ravagers and their cleverness in tracking Falk, their cruelty? Their killing people on the way especially the old man? The build-up to the attack and siege of the boat? The final confrontation and death?

8. Falk and his wandering, his meeting with Faina her place with the Flockers, their cave and luxurious existence, the overtones of the brothel? Her luring him, her dependence on him? The bond, love? Their escaping together? Falk and his confrontation with the blind lawyer, the cave people, the quarry and his being stoned? The discovery of the army installation and the confrontation with the sergeant? Leading his group to the boat?

9. The discovery of the sergeant? Art Carney's comic style, his madness, memories, the nuclear overtones, sticking by the book? The stores of food? His helping of Falk, taking him to the Flockers? His piano playing ? Tea for Two and comedy routines? His strategies? His presence on the boat, his help in the final battle? The oddness of the character within this context?

10. The boat and its isolation, uncontaminated society, happy and prosperous? Rann and Ernest Borgnine's style, his control? The revelation of the prison, the crime of the prisoners, Falk and his, argumentation with Rann? Confrontation? Brown and his help?

11. The significance of Falk's challenging Rann? The possibility of life on earth? the signs, the fish? Hopes?

12. The ultimate crisis with the attack of the ravagers and the confrontation with Rann? Rann's death? The death of the ravagers, the explosion?

13. The possibility of a future? Falk leading his group to a New Earth?

14. Themes of human nature and evil, capacity for good, building a future, the death of society, the abuses of society, hopes? The use of old myths of death and destruction, hope for new Paradise? in futuristic science fiction guise?