The Suckers

Last updated
The Suckers
The Suckers (1972) poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byStu Segall (as Arthur Byrd)
Written by Ted Paramore (as Edward Everett)
StarringRichard Smedley
Lori Rose
Vincent Stevens
Sandy Dempsey
Barbara Mills
Norman Fields
CinematographyHal Guthu
Edited byLawrence Avery
Production
company
Cromwell Pictures
Distributed byEntertainment Ventures
Release date
  • 1972 (1972)
Running time
79 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$30,000

The Suckers is a 1972 American sexploitation film directed by Stu Segall under the pseudonym Arthur Byrd, and written by Ted Paramore (credited as Edward Everett). [1] It is an adaptation of the 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game", written by Richard Connell, with a plot that follows a big-game hunter who invites employees from a modeling agency to his estate, where he hunts them. [2] [3] The film stars Richard Smedley, Lori Rose, Vincent Stevens, Sandy Dempsey, Barbara Mills, and Norman Fields.

Contents

The Suckers was filmed in the Bronson Canyon area of California over the course of three days, and was released in the United States in 1972. The only surviving print of the film, from a 1976 re-release, appears to contain at least two instances of missing footage. This print was used for a DVD release of the film by Vinegar Syndrome in 2013.

Cast

Production

"We were all really into making the movie. The T&A part was no big deal to us—we were all 24, 25-year-old kids doin' this (except for the guys like Dave Friedman, Ted [Paramore] and the cameraman). We were a bunch of young ne'er-do-wells just makin' movies however we could make 'em."

– Director Stu Segall recalling the production of The Suckers. [5]

The Suckers was filmed in 35 mm over the course of three days, in the Bronson Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills in California. [6] The film's budget is estimated to have been around $30,000, and the crew was reportedly made up of "less than ten" people. [7] According to director Stu Segall, the film was "very cheaply made", with the crew making around $50 a day and the cast members making around $150. [7]

During filming one day, actor Norman Fields swallowed a bee before he was able to finish his scenes. [8] He was taken to a hospital and returned to the set several hours later. [8]

Home media

In April 2013, The Suckers was released on DVD by Vinegar Syndrome as a double feature with the 1971 film The Love Garden. [9] This release made use of the lone surviving print of The Suckers, from a 1976 re-release of the film by Lee Ming Film Company. [7] This print appears to feature at least two instances of missing footage, which take place during Vandemeer's hunt for other characters. [7]

Critical reception

Bryan Senn, in his book The Most Dangerous Cinema: People Hunting People on Film, wrote that certain directorial decisions, "and/or intuitive happy accidents", that he observed in The Suckers causes him to "wish that Segall had slipped his sexploitation bonds and received more opportunities to make 'straight' films". [10] He concluded: "while not always 'fun' watching, The Suckers offers just enough, both sexploitation- and Most Dangerous Game-wise, to keep viewers from feeling one." [11]

In 2023, a reviewer for Pulp International criticized the film's structure, writing: "Even though The Suckers is a sexploitation movie, we expected the ratio of skin to action to be roughly equivalent, but the hunting scenes take up only about twenty minutes, while sex consumes about thirty minutes, a couple of sexual assaults take about ten, and bad dialogue fills out the rest of the running time. [...] The Suckers is just gratuitous and haphazard. Its failure is probably why it was later released as The Woman Hunt—because a certain segment of the male population would see it based on that title alone." [12]

Related Research Articles

<i>Orgy of the Dead</i> 1965 American film

Orgy of the Dead is a 1965 American erotic horror film directed by Stephen C. Apostolof and written by cult film director Ed Wood, who also adapted the screenplay into a novel. The film belongs to the genre of "nudie-cuties", defined as narrative-based films featuring female nudity that originated from earlier films featuring striptease performances and burlesque shows.

<i>Pulp Fiction</i> 1994 crime film by Quentin Tarantino

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American independent crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino from a story he conceived with Roger Avary. It tells four intertwining tales of crime and violence in Los Angeles, California. The film stars John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman. The title refers to the pulp magazines and hardboiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bronson</span> American actor (1921–2003)

Charles Bronson was an American actor. He was known for his roles in action films and his "granite features and brawny physique". Bronson was born into extreme poverty in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania, a coal mining town in the Allegheny Mountains. Bronson's father, a miner, died when Bronson was young. Bronson himself worked in the mines as well until joining the United States Army Air Forces in 1943 to fight in World War II. After his service, he joined a theatrical troupe and studied acting. During the 1950s, he played various supporting roles in motion pictures and television, including anthology drama TV series in which he would appear as the main character. Near the end of the decade, he had his first cinematic leading role in Machine-Gun Kelly (1958).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Most Dangerous Game</span> 1924 short story by Richard Connell

"The Most Dangerous Game", also published as "The Hounds of Zaroff", is a short story by Richard Connell, first published in Collier's on January 19, 1924, with illustrations by Wilmot Emerton Heitland. The story features a big-game hunter from New York City who falls from a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat. The story is inspired by the big-game hunting safaris in Africa and South America that were particularly fashionable among wealthy Americans in the 1920s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medieval hunting</span> Aristocratic hunting practice

Royal hunting, also royal art of hunting, was a hunting practice of the aristocracy throughout the known world in the Middle Ages, from Europe to Far East. While humans hunted wild animals since time immemorial, and all classes engaged in hunting as an important source of food and at times the principal source of nutrition, the necessity of hunting was transformed into a stylized pastime of the aristocracy. In Europe in the High Middle Ages the practice was widespread.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexploitation film</span> Genre of independently produced, low-budget feature films

A sexploitation film is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit sexual situations and gratuitous nudity. The genre is a subgenre of exploitation films. The term "sexploitation" has been used since the 1940s.

"Homecoming" is the fifth episode of the third season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was written and directed by David Greenwalt, and first broadcast on The WB on November 3, 1998.

<i>Death Hunt</i> 1980 film by Peter R. Hunt

Death Hunt is a 1981 Western action film directed by Peter Hunt. The film stars Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Carl Weathers, Maury Chaykin, Ed Lauter and Andrew Stevens. Death Hunt was a fictionalized account of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pursuit of a man named Albert Johnson. Earlier films exploring the same topic were The Mad Trapper (1972), a British made-for-television production and Challenge to Be Free (1975).

Human hunting refers to humans being hunted and killed for other persons' revenge, pleasure, entertainment, sports, or sustenance. Historically, incidents of the practice have occurred during times of social upheaval.

<i>Drive-In Massacre</i> 1976 American film

Drive-In Massacre is a 1976 American B-movie slasher film written and directed by Stu Segall, and co-written by John F. Goff and George Buck Flower.

<i>The Most Dangerous Game</i> (1932 film) 1932 film

The Most Dangerous Game is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray and Leslie Banks.

<i>Death Wish</i> (1974 film) 1974 American vigilante action thriller film

Death Wish is a 1974 American vigilante action film directed by Michael Winner. The film, loosely based on the 1972 novel of the same title by Brian Garfield and the first film in the Death Wish film series, stars Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, alongside Hope Lange, Vincent Gardenia, William Redfield, Kathleen Tolan and Christopher Guest. In the film, Paul Kersey, an architect leading a peaceful life, resorts to vigilantism after his wife gets murdered and daughter molested during a home invasion.

<i>Frightmare</i> (1981 film) 1983 American film

Frightmare is a 1983 American supernatural slasher film written and directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane. It stars Ferdy Mayne, Luca Bercovici, Jennifer Starrett, Nita Talbot and Barbara Pilavin, along with Jeffrey Combs in his horror film acting debut. The film's plot follows a group of drama students who decide to kidnap the corpse of a recently deceased horror movie star. By disrupting his tomb, they unwittingly release an ancient black magic that begins consuming them one by one.

<i>AVH: Alien vs. Hunter</i> 2007 American film

AVH: Alien vs. Hunter is a 2007 science fiction horror film directed by Scott Harper and starring William Katt and Dedee Pfeiffer. It was distributed by The Asylum, and much like The Asylum's other films, AVH is a "mockbuster", or a low-budget film made to capitalize on the popularity of a more widely released film using a derivative of the plot and title of the latter; in this case, it closely resembles Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (AVPR), a crossover between the Alien and Predator film franchises. Like that film, it deals with a suburban community being threatened by a fight between two warring extraterrestrial beings. It was released straight to DVD on December 18, 2007, one week before AVPR's theatrical release, and was met with a largely negative response from critics.

<i>Prey</i> (1977 film) 1977 British film

Prey is a 1977 British science fiction horror film produced by Terry Marcel and directed by Norman J. Warren. The plot concerns a carnivorous alien landing on Earth and befriending a lesbian couple as part of his mission to evaluate humans as a source of food. It was filmed in ten days on a budget of about £50,000 using locations near Shepperton Studios in Surrey. It had a limited distribution on release.

<i>The Woman Hunt</i> 1972 film directed by Eddie Romero

The Woman Hunt is a 1972 film directed by Eddie Romero and starring John Ashley, Pat Woodell, and Sid Haig.

<i>The Telephone Book</i> 1971 film

The Telephone Book is a 1971 American independent sexploitation comedy film written and directed by Nelson Lyon and starring Sarah Kennedy, along with Norman Rose, James Harder, and Jill Clayburgh. The film follows a solitary but lustful woman named Alice, who falls in love with a stranger who makes obscene phone calls to her. The film is satirical in nature, and often breaks the fourth wall.

<i>Vampire Hookers</i> 1978 Filipino film

Vampire Hookers is a 1978 sexploitation horror film directed by Cirio H. Santiago and written by Howard R. Cohen. An international co-production of the Philippines and the United States, the film stars John Carradine as a vampire named Richmond Reed, who recruits three female vampires who pose as prostitutes in order to lure victims to their lair. The other members of the cast include Bruce Fairbairn, Trey Wilson, Karen Stride, Lenka Novak, and Katie Dolan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adaptations of The Most Dangerous Game</span>

"The Most Dangerous Game" is an influential 1924 short story by Richard Connell. It tells the story of big-game hunter Sanger Rainsford becoming the hunted when trapped on a jungle island owned by General Zaroff, a Russian aristocrat who has turned to hunting man after growing bored of hunting animals.

<i>Confessions of a Psycho Cat</i> 1968 film by Herb Stanley

Confessions of a Psycho Cat is a 1968 American black and white sexploitation film directed by Herb Stanley and released by Chancellor Films.

References

  1. Senn 2013, p. 53–54.
  2. Hunter, Rob (August 22, 2019). "The Best Adaptations of 'The Most Dangerous Game' You've Never Seen". /Film . Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Senn 2013, p. 50.
  4. Senn 2013, p. 50, 55.
  5. Senn 2013, p. 55.
  6. Senn 2013, p. 56–57.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Senn 2013, p. 57.
  8. 1 2 Senn 2013, p. 58.
  9. "The Suckers/The Love Garden". Amazon.com . Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  10. Senn 2013, p. 56.
  11. Senn 2013, p. 59.
  12. "A Shot at Survival". Pulp International. January 13, 2023. Retrieved April 25, 2023.

Bibliography