THE DEATH CHEATERS
Australia, 1976, 96 minutes, Colour.
John Hargreaves, Grant Page, Margaret Gerard, Noel Ferrier, Drew Forsythe.
Directed by Brian Trenchard Smith.
Death Cheaters is a light entertainment from the mid-70s – an opportunity for the Australian film industry to show that it could do stunt work as well as any other industry. Grant Page was a well-known stuntman at this particular time and gets the opportunity to do all kinds of stunts – they include abseiling on the Sydney Hilton hotel, some dune buggy racing – but in a suburban shopping mall and all kinds of kinds of stunts with flair.
There is a threat of a story with John Hargreaves as the lead. However, it is the stunts that count.
The film was directed by Brian Trenchard- Smith. He had just made the thriller Man from Hong Kong the year before. He made a number of small action films in Australia including Turkey Shoot, Jenny Kissed Me as well as the children’s films BMX Bandits and Frog Dreaming. He then went overseas and made a number of small-budget films including The Omega Code 2. More upmarket was his film about the doomed World War One ship, the sister ship of the Titanic, Brittanic.
1. An enjoyable adventure? Its quality as matinee material? Appeal to boys, girls, adults?
2. Comment on the production values of the film: its use of Sydney locations, the quality of the stunts and their Performance, the styles of photographing the action.
3. How important was the focus on the heroes? The background of their ordinariness. Involvement in the Vietnam war, their capacity for survival and adventure, (the visualizing of levels torture during the war?), the nature of their work, the bond of comradeship between them?
4. What was the nature of their heroics? Their explanation of their sense of excitement and the desire for involvement in this kind of work, the exhilaration of achievement in the stunts?
5. How interesting a character was Rod? His individual style, home, friendship with his dog? the girls in his life? The importance of excitement and his stunt work? How much fear was there in his life? The sense of adventure?
6. The comparison with Steve? His personal style, his marriage and relationship with his wife, her fear for him and yet her involvement in his work?
7. How strong were the visuals of the film: the opening and the mediaeval warfare and its irony at the end when revealed to be a commercial and not an epic? (The satire on the Germanic director and his self-importance?) The presentation of film-ads? The understanding of stunt work and the role of cameras and the mechanisms for photographing stunt work?
8. Comment on each of the stunts especially those at the beginning for Culpepper's set-up, to give a sense of excitement? The chase through the streets and the supermarket, the boring through the side of the skyscraper?
9. What kind of man was Culpepper? The sinister introduction? The visit to the bowling green and the seeing of all the criminals and the police present there? Culpepper as a member of the Public Service? The sinister nature of espionage, even in Australia? The morality and the legality of such espionage?
10. Comment on the characters in Culpepper's service, his secretary and her involvement with the group, the so-called civil servant and his testing of the two?
1l. How interesting and enjoyable were the training sequences? The fact that the two heroes got through their obstacle course without any difficulty? Their planning for their mission?
12. How enjoyable was the accomplishment of the mission? Did its purpose have any importance? Their style in encountering the Filipinos, the spectacle of their escape, skydiving etc?
13. The film's emphasis on violence? Healthy or not? The violence and excitement?
14. What values are presupposed in this kind of film? Goodies and baddies, heroism, manliness etc?
