The Suckers (1972) – Review

There have been many adaptations of Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” – from the big to the small screen and with varying degrees of success – but in 1972 director Stu Segall took that well-told premise into the sexploitation genre and the result was…something.

As with most adaptations of Conell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” this movie deals with a rich psychotic hunter deciding humans are the ultimate prey, for this outing we have Steve Vandemeer (Steve Vincent) a once famous big-game hunter who has tired of tracking and killing animals and has moved on to a more “challenging” type of prey. The film opens with the arrival of Vandemeer’s guests, George (Norman Fields) and Cindy Stone (Barbara Mills), who own a modelling agency and two of their top models, Joanna (Laurie Rose) and Barbara (Sandy Dempsey). This does raise an important question “Who would consider these people as the most dangerous game?” I certainly wouldn’t consider one middle-aged man and three women from the world of modelling to be all that much of a challenge, then again, I’m not a world-class big-game hunter.

This looks more like one of those swinging “key parties” popularized in the 1970s.

We do have one extra guest who could give Vandemeer a proper contest, Jeff Baxter (Richard Smedley), a professional hunter and Vietnam vet who immediately questions the complete lack of game on Vandemeer’s estate. Our host assures him that “We wouldn’t have gone to the expense of bringing someone of your calibre here if I didn’t think that challenge wouldn’t be equal to your abilities.” But Baxter presses him on just what kind of game they are going to hunt. Vandemeer replies “Mister Baxter, since I stopped hunting, once in a while I get a craving for the challenge, I get a feeling that I once again want to go out and face death so to speak. And so, I send men to every section of the world to bring back the most dangerous game. I think this time we’ve found one that will be clever beyond your belief.” Really? Once again I must ask, seriously, “What is dangerous about fashion models?”

“Are you some secret super spy posing as a model?”

While this is an adaptation of Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” it takes about fifty minutes for the “game” section of the movie to get finally going – which is not great when the movie is only eighty minutes long to begin with – with much of that screen time being spent on overly long softcore sex scenes, and which are about as erotic Bingo Night at an old folk’s home. After these tiresome scenes play out, we finally get to the “meat” of the picture with Vandemeer finally cluing his guests as to what game he will be hunting “Ladies, gentleman, you are here today because you are the hunted.”

I will say this, we don’t get the standard stuff of the hero trying to outwit the villain – well, not entirely, but he’s a very lame hero and only achieves one minor victory – what this movie offers that other adaptations never dared to depict, and that would blatant sexual assault.

“I brought you all here for some gratuitous sex and violence, also rape.”

Stray Observations:

• Actress Laurie Rose starred in two “The Most Dangerous Game” adaptations in 1972, the other being The Woman Hunt.
• This movie was filmed mostly around Bronson Canyon, sadly, we don’t get a good view of the infamous Batcave entrance.
• Vandemeer dresses in a safari suit and pit helmet on his hunt because he thinks he is a 1940 jungle movie. Would have loved to see him hunt Tarzan.
• Jeff Baxter is a former Green Beret who served in Vietnam, thus making him a “Most Dangerous Game.” This element was later used in Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme.
• We are told about Vandemeer lassoing an orangutan in Rhodesia, and Jeff claims to have hunted snow leopards in the Andes. Unless these animals escaped from zoos, they have no business being on those continents.
• Vandemeer claims that raping one’s prey is an ancient right of those who hunt humans. I’m not exactly sure what “ancient right” he is referring to. Even Google couldn’t help me on this one.
• It’s not a proper 70s sexploitation film if we don’t get some girl-on-girl action and in that area, this film does not disappoint.

The Most Dangerous Bubble Bath.

Written and produced by Edward Everett, The Suckers is a godawful movie and one of the worst takes on the “Most Dangerous Game” premise, with poor direction by Stu Segall and a cast whose acting abilities are on par without you’d find in your average porn film of this era, this beyond the pale terrible. And I’m not even sure who the “Suckers” in the title is referring to. Is it the people who Vandemeer has lured to his private estate under false pretenses? Or does it refer to the people who paid good money to see this piece of dreck? Overall, this is nothing here to warrant even the barest of recommendations, it is a tasteless film that fails on all counts as it is neither thrilling nor erotic. This movie does not reach the levels of “So bad it’s good” but falls more in the category of best forgotten.