Deathsport (Nicholas Niciphor & Allan Arkush, 1978)

The second Roger Corman-produced post-apocalyptic vehicle-based movie about a deadly sporting event starring David Carradine (and the third involving vehicular insanity if you include the non-post-apocalyptic Cannonball!), Deathsport was meant to follow up on the success and popularity of Death Race 2000 but turned into an enormous fiasco for almost everyone involved, though it's still an enjoyable if not particularly distinguished b-movie. The behind-the-scenes drama involved Roger Corman trying to convince David Carradine not to do the movie, Carradine regretting not taking Corman's advice, a chaotic atmosphere on set involving much drug and alcohol abuse, an inexperienced director leaving the movie twice (he quit, came back, and then got fired), Corman vet Allan Arkush coming in to save the day twice, and physical altercations between director and actors with vicious but contradictory he-said/he-said accounts of what went down from Nicholas Niciphor and Carradine.

Carradine signed a five-picture deal with Roger Corman in 1975, beginning with Death Race 2000 (written about on this site a few months ago). He followed it up for Corman with the aforementioned cross-country road race movie Cannonball! (not to be confused with The Cannonball Run) and moonshinersploitation comedy Thunder and Lightning. In the meantime, the popularity of Death Race 2000 and the Kung Fu TV series put Carradine back on the radar of Hollywood casting agents and major international productions, and he snagged the lead in Hal Ashby's Woody Guthrie film Bound for Glory (one of the only good music biopics) and Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (one of Bergman's only English-language films).

Back on the A-list or at least comfortably near it, Carradine stayed loyal to Roger Corman and their five-movie deal and agreed to play the lead in Deathsport. Corman tried to talk him out of it, telling him to wait for something better, but Carradine insisted, figuring a similar concept to Death Race 2000 could cross over from drive-ins to mainstream audiences the way that movie had. He almost immediately regretted the decision, saying the movie killed his career momentum and stuck him in b-movies and episodic television for most of the rest of his working life, though some of that stuff was great, especially The Long Riders, Q: The Winged Serpent, and his Hollywood comeback in the Kill Bill movies.

Deathsport was a thorn in Corman's side almost from the beginning. Corman's veteran screenwriting collaborator Charles B. Griffith took a crack at it first, but Corman didn't like the results and thought it was a rare Griffith dud. So did most of the directors in the Corman stable, who turned it down one after another, including Arkush (co-director of Hollywood Boulevard and director of Rock'n'Roll High School, Heartbeeps, Get Crazy, Caddyshack II, and at least one episode of at least half the network TV shows from the '80s to the 2010s). Corman got recent USC film school graduate Nicholas Niciphor to completely rewrite the movie. Niciphor had just written the screenplay for the indie drama Our Winning Season, an early film from Stepfather director Joseph Ruben that had done well. That film's producer, Joe Roth (later a major studio executive), told Corman he should let Niciphor direct Deathsport because he'd seen his USC student films and thought the kid had the goods. Corman gave him a shot, which turned into a disaster.

According to Niciphor, he walked into a hostile, drug-addled set with a perpetually stoned Carradine and a perpetually drunk and/or coked-up Claudia Jennings who wouldn't stop giving him the business. He claims Carradine was also physically abusive, roughing him up on multiple occasions. Carradine admits to the heavy drug use on set from both him and Jennings but says that Niciphor was erratic, prone to tantrums, and physically and emotionally abusive to Jennings. When he saw Niciphor hit Jennings, he went ballistic and kicked Niciphor's ass. Carradine's version of events is mostly backed up by Deathsport cinematographer Gary Graver (a lifelong Orson Welles collaborator and close friend who took jobs on b-movies and porn films to scrape up some cash for Welles' projects), who emphasized that Niciphor was especially mean to Jennings, and Arkush, who says Jennings was very coked-up but that Niciphor didn't know what he was doing and behaved inconsistently. Graver also says he thinks Niciphor had untreated PTSD from Vietnam and that the director would often become obsessed with relating the grisliest details of his war experiences. We don't have Jennings' point of view because she sadly died in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 29. Whatever the truth, this was a majorly dysfunctional set.

Corman mostly kept his distance from the on-set drama but felt that the inexperienced Niciphor was struggling to handle the action scenes. When an exasperated Niciphor quit near the end of the shooting schedule, Arkush stepped in. Niciphor came back and agreed to finish the film on the condition he didn't have to direct any Carradine scenes, but the problems persisted and he was fired, with Arkush again stepping in for reshoots as well as a re-edit. Corman told him to salvage the film by shooting some exciting motorcycle chases, even more nudity, and several explosions. Arkush delivered the goods. The usually tight-pursed Corman really let him go wild with the pyro, and the film has a comically awesome number of major explosions. Niciphor never directed again (he's credited on this film under the fake name Henry Suso), but he continued to work as a screenwriter.

Despite all this behind-the-scenes insanity, what's on screen is a pretty standard Roger Corman b-movie. We have a post-apocalyptic wasteland in a future "one thousand years from tomorrow" where most of humanity and our institutions and technology have disappeared. A handful of independent city-states still exist but what lies between is mostly a barren desert, inhabited by cave-dwelling cannibal mutants. A nomadic, scantily clad tribe of nomadic guides with mild psychic healing and telepathic powers make their living by safely guiding people from one city-state to another. Two of these guides are Kaz Oshay (Carradine) and Deneer (Gator Bait star and Playboy Playmate Jennings). The mad dictator of one of the city-states, Lord Zirpola (David McLean), has replaced capital punishment with deathsport, a battle to the death in an explosives-laden outdoor stadium with the prisoners on souped-up motorbikes called death machines. If you kill your opponent, your criminal record is wiped and you go free.

Lord Zirpola's right-hand man is Ankar Moor (Richard Lynch, especially memorable in The Seven-Ups, God Told Me To, and Bad Dreams). Zirpola has the wild idea to kidnap all the guides and make them fight the prisoners in the deathsport events. This is an insane move, but Ankar is one hundred percent on board because he got his ass kicked by Oshay's mother several years ago and wants revenge. Ankar also wants Lord Zirpola's job. After a valiant battle with Zirpola's men where he dispatches most of them with these awesome devices that instantly vaporize people, usually mid-scream (we get a lot of hilarious interrupted screams), Oshay is captured and imprisoned. Deneer has already been captured, too. Zirpola even throws his doctor, Dr. Karl (William Smithers), in a cell after the doc tells him he has a previously unknown brain disease caused by excessive radiation and needs to step down as leader. Dr. Karl's son Marcus (Will Walker), who was being guided by Deneer when she was taken, returns to save his dad. I just watched Will Walker the previous Friday in Paul Schrader's Hardcore, and here he is again on a second consecutive Friday. You can't make this stuff up.

After a harrowing imprisonment, torture (including nude electric shock treatment for the women; the dudes get to keep wearing their loincloths), a deathsport game, and a daring escape, Oshay, Deneer, Dr. Karl, and Marcus take off across the desert, with Ankar and his boys in pursuit. The cannibal mutants also get in on the action. More motorcycle chases, nudity, explosions, decapitations, tender moments, cannibalism, laser blasting, and sword fighting ensue. It's all pretty silly and pretty fun.

With Arkush's help, Deathsport made it past the finish line. It's not one of the great Corman movies, but it's not turgid slop. If you like the drive-in b-movie experience, you'll probably find something to like here, but it's nothing to rearrange your schedule for if you have a great movie to watch. I can be an arty son-of-a-bitch, but I also like shit blowing up real good, motorcycles driving real fast, decapitated heads rolling, and sexy ladies, so I can never dismiss Deathsport entirely. It's no Death Race 2000, but, hey, it's alright.

One last wild bit of trivia for my fellow music fanatics. The film's score by Andy Stein is played on a bunch of bleeping and blooping synths by cult avant-garde composer (and member of Iggy and the Stooges on the final leg of the Raw Power tour) "Blue" Gene Tyranny and on guitar by Jerry Garcia. I would love to know the story behind the music. The score is pretty bonkers and one of the movie's highlights.