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Slayground
Slayground
	DVD cover
Directed by	Terry Bedford
Screenplay by	Trevor Preston
Based on	Slayground; by Donald E. Westlake
Produced by	John Dark; Gower Frost
Starring	Peter Coyote; Mel Smith; Billie Whitelaw;
Cinematography	Stephen Smith
Edited by	Nick Gaster
Music by	Colin Towns
Production; companies	Thorn EMI; Jennie and Company;
Distributed by	Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors
Release date	December 1983 (United Kingdom);
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$5 million

Slayground is a 1983 British crime thriller film directed by Terry Bedford and starring Peter Coyote, Mel Smith and Billie Whitelaw.^[2] The screenplay was by Trevor Preston, adapted from Slayground, the 14th Parker novel (1971) by Donald E. Westlake (as Richard Stark).

Cast

Peter Coyote as Stone
Mel Smith as Terry Abbatt
Billie Whitelaw as Madge
Philip Sayer as Costello
Bill Luhrs as Joe Sheer
Marie Masters as Joni
Clarence Felder as Orxel
Ned Eisenberg as Lonzini
David Hayward as Laufman
Michael M. Ryan as Danard
Barrett Mulligan as Lucy
Kelli Maroney as Jolene
Margareta Arvidssen as Grete
Rosemary Martin as Dr. King
Malcolm Terris as Venner
Jon Morrison as Webb
Cassie Stuart as Fran
Debby Bishop as Beth
Stephen Yardley as Turner
P. H. Moriarty as Seeley
Zig Byfield as Sams
Erick Ray Evans as Malpas
Bill Dean as compére
Ozzie Yue as waiter
Tony Devon as Joey

Production

The film was developed by Barry Spikins when he was heard of EMI Films. In early 1983 Spikings left and Verity Lambert was appointed head of production.^[3] Slayground became the first movie part of Lambert's slate of films. She later said, I wasn't very keen, but I thought, "Well, I’m starting off and this is definitely different to television and maybe I have to go by somebody else’s judgement". She claimed the distributors were convinced the film would be a commercial hit.^[4]

Others in Lamber's slate included Comfort and Joy, Illegal Aliens (which became Morons from Outer Space) and Dreamchild.^[5]^[6]

Filming on Slayground had finished by November 1983. "I believe all these films have international appeal," said Lambert.^[7]

Academic Paul Moody wrote in his story of EMI Films that Slayground "marks a transition point in EMI’s history, both literally and metaphorically, and it has a liminal feel to it that betrays its origins from two diver- gent production strategies." He felt the fact the second half of the film moving to England was "a metaphorical handing over of the baton... a dramatic shift in tone from what had until then been a pedestrian American thriller, bringing in supernatural elements that shift the film towards a more English gothic sensibility." Moody felt "the film has some genuinely atmospheric moments and marks the point at which historically, EMI transitioned back towards making films set in Britain and which focused specifically on British culture."^[8]

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Flashdance meets film noir for this disappointingly lame front-runner from the new EMI stable. A directing début for Terry Bedford, formerly lighting cameraman for Adrian Lyne then for Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Jabberwocky, and now teamed with commercials cameraman Stephen Smith, Slayground is full of portentous camerawork that loads even a simple bus-stop arrival with heavily irrelevant suspense. ... Slayground offers a beginner's course in customary crimethriller images, culminating in the fairground shoot-out, all ho-ho masks and halls of mirrors, for those who may have forgotten how these things always used to be done. Littered with fashionably upright corpses, the film offers the ultimate affront in the concept of its gloating, faceless killer, fountaining bullets as from the hosepipe of a demented gardener (our team has scrupulously noted Assault on Precinct 13 along with Lady from Shanghai and Bugsy Malone), and almost as immune to retaliation as the bogeyman in Halloween. Rather as with the mystery girl at the start – and, for that matter, the film's title itself – his presence seems to mean something but nobody, it appears, could quite remember what."^[9]

Leslie Halliwell said: "One of those tedious and violent films in which the criminal wins out; slickness seems to make it worse."^[10]

References

^ "The Sunday press has reported on the UK film industry." 17 April 1983 Textline Multiple Source Collection (1980–1994)
^ "Slayground". British Film Institute. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
^ Myles, Lynda (Summer 1983). "Two Britons". Sight and Sound. p. 162.
^ Dougary, Ginny (1994). The executive tart and other myths : media women talk back. pp. 33–34.
^ 'Cinema Verity: Peter Fiddick talks to EMI-Thorn 's new film production chief' Fiddick, Peter. The Guardian 24 November 1983 p 13.
^ "Four new British films". Evening Standard. London. 15 November 1983. p. 3.
^ 'EMI back with four feature films' Fiddick, Peter. The Guardian 16 November 1983: 2.
^ Moody, Paul (2018). EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. pp. 192–193.
^ "Slayground". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 51 (600): 52. 1 January 1984 – via ProQuest.
^ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 928. ISBN 0586088946.