Deathsport * (1978, David Carradine, Claudia Jennings, Richard Lynch) – Classic Movie Review 9321

Directors Nicholas Niciphor [Henry Suso] and Allan Arkush’s futuristic 1978 science fiction B-movie Deathsport is the much less exciting, much less amusing, much less successful follow-up to Death Race 2000, with motorcycles instead of cars. David Carradine stars as Range Guide warrior Kaz Oshay, who battles along with female gladiator Deneer (Claudia Jennings) on lethal laser-equipped dirt motorbikes, ‘destructocycles’, in a sport to the death obviously.

Deathsport is a violent and cheap-looking and unappealing action, drama, sci-fi exploiter set in the year 3000 when ‘there’s no more Olympic Games, World Series or Superbowl, only Deathsport!’ Good to know.

Also in the cast are Richard Lynch as Ankar Moor, William Smithers as Dr Karl, Will Walker as Marcus Karl, David McLean as Lord Zirpola, Jesse Vint as Polna, H B Haggerty as jailer, Peter Hooper as Mr Bakkar and Brenda Venus as Adriann..

The film is scored by Andy Stein and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead provides guitar riffs that were run through a synthesiser for the film’s soundtrack.

Deathsport is directed by Nicholas Niciphor [Henry Suso] and Allan Arkush, runs 82 minutes, is made by New World, is written by Nicholas Niciphor [Henry Suso] and Donald E Stewart, based on a story by Frances Doel, is shot by Gary Graver (Metrocolor), is produced by Roger Corman and is scored by Andy Stein [Andrew Stein], with Art Direction by Sharon Compton.

It was one of Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings’s last movies before her death aged 29 in a car crash on 3 October 1979, in Malibu, California.

A third film called Deathworld was announced but never made after Deathsport was not as successful at the box office as Death Race 2000. Even so, the low-budget movie ($150,000) took $400,000 at the box office and was another earner for Roger Corman.

Corman was unhappy with the script that he had asked Charles B Griffith to write, so Nicholas Niciphor, a recent graduate of USC, was given the job of rewriting and directing the film. But shooting was problematic and the film fell behind schedule. Niciphor said: ‘The script was too ambitious, the shooting schedule too tight and the crew and the cast were largely sodden with drugs.’

Carradine said Niciphor’s direction ‘seemed to me to mainly consist of hysteria and episodic tantrums’ and claimed that Niciphor allegedly ‘physically attacked’ Claudia Jennings and that Carradine ‘beat up’ Niciphor in response. But Niciphor later denied this and claimed that Carradine allegedly assaulted him on several occasions, one of which allegedly resulted in Carradine breaking the nose of Niciphor, who ended up in hospital.

However, Niciphor went back to the set and completed the movie on time. Then Corman asked Niciphor to return to shoot some additional scenes, but Niciphor refused because he did not want to work with Carradine again. Allan Arkush was called in to complete the film, recutting it and adding new scenes. Arkush recalled: ‘Mostly we just blew up motorcycles. We also set some mutants on fire. And the stunning Claudia Jennings got naked. Sad to say, I couldn’t save the picture.’

Carradine, who was committed to star under a five-picture contract with Corman and was available for only 21 days so he could leave to film Circle of Iron (1978), recalled Deathsport as terrible and claimed his career ‘never really fully recovered from that blunder’.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9321

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