STEEL ARENA

US, 1973, 98 minutes, Colour.
Dusty Russell.
Directed by Mark L. Lester.

Steel Arena is almost a documentary about stuntmen. However, there is a loose underlying story.

The film focuses on a group of stuntmen and their death-defying performances. The central focus is on Dusty Russell as himself, doing all kinds of leaps and jumps – including an attempt to jump a hundred feet into the air. As might be expected, this is a film for adrenalin thrills.

It was directed by Mark L. Lester, something of an exploitation director who made a number of interesting films in the 1970s and 80s including Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, The Class of 1984.

1. Was this an enjoyable film? For whom was it made? (Was it too particularly American?)

2. How successful was the documentary atmosphere of the film? Was it hindered by the editing style with the long takes and fade outs? Should it have moved more quickly? Were your surprised to find that real drivers and promoters acted the parts in the film? Did this make a difference to your response? The fact that real people were enacting their own lives?

3. What did the film have to say about this particular aspect of American life? The people involved in sport? The people who go to watch? The particular interest of people in cars, machines, their capacities, risks, thrills, human endeavour and ambitions in this kind of world?

4. How did the opening part of the story prepare us for the film? The smuggling? The shooting and the thrills of the road chase? How well filmed was the initial chase? What did it reveal about Dusty Russell? What made him so enjoy his driving and eluding thnose chasing him? Is this quite understandable? Does it appeal to the same in the audience?

5. Dusty Russell was a real person, not an actor. Was this evident in the film? Was it ironic that a real driver should play such a part? What kind of person did he appear to be? Was he sympathetic? Were his friends sympathetic? His picking up the girl? Did he relate to her in a human and h humane way? What sequences illustrate this best?

6. How interestingly filmed was the stock car rally? What was your response to this exhibition of car smashing? Why do people enjoy this? Is it a healthy kind of sport? Why?

7. How interesting was the picture of the circuit of stunt riders? What makes a stunt driver tick? Did the film show this? Did it explore it well? Which sequences best illustrated this?

8. What comment on the audience who watched the circuit drivers did the film make? Did it approve of thern? Did it criticise them in their search for thrills, accidents? Or did it simply show a mixture of people who enjoye?1 it
and people who exploited it? How is this illustrated?

9. Do audiences appreciate the skills of the drivers and their stunts? Did the film emphasize this aspect of their techniques? Have they the right to take such risks with their lives and the lives of others? How strong are their nerves? How strong are their personalities?

10. Was the promoter a sympathetic character? Did he understand his drivers and look after them well? Was he a greedy man? Was he just an advertising man, arranging his tours the best possible way? (What did you think of the fact that a real promoter played this part?)

11. Did the film indicate well how human problems sach as jealousy can enter in? How the has-beens find it difficult to keep up and want to assert themselves? Was the villain too obviously villainous? Was the second rate driver too obviously a pathos victim?

12. How realistic and shocking were the death sequences? Did this alter your opinion of the type of challenge that such driving offers and whether the drivers should take such risks?

13. Were you shocked at the end with Dusty’s death? What had he achieved in trying to break his record? Was this a worthwhile enterprise on his part?

14. Comment on the way that the dive was filmed in slow motion and with the gradual progress of the dive? The ballyhoo that went before it? This as typical American town behaviour? The curious people and the ambulances?

15. What comment did the film make about the camp followers, the girls especially who associate with the drivers? What are they after? Are they too casual for any human relationships?

16. Do you think this film was made as an advertisement for these drivers? As a warning? As simply exhibiting this way of life? Was it a successful film?