SLAYGROUND

UK, 1984, 89 minutes, Colour.

Peter Coyote, Mel Smith, Billie Whitelaw, Philip Sayer.

Directed by Terry Bedford.

The title comes from a novel by Donald E. Westlake, using his other nom de plume, Richard Stark (with films like Point Blank, The Split, the Parker series).

It is something of a curiosity item now, only 89 minutes, the first half in the United States, very American gangster style, the second half in the UK, British thriller style.

With the American half, a young man, flirting, is shot dead by a seductive young woman. The connection with the main plot is that he is to be the driver of the getaway car for a heist. The substitute driver is a hot head, driving madly after the robbery, speeding, crashing into a car. The audience has seen the occupant, a young girl, daughter of a very proud father, at her dancing lesson. With her death, the father seeks vengeance, employing an unseen hitman who gets rid of two of the gang in rather gruesome fashion, but fails to kill the brains behind the gang who is compassionate towards the death of the daughter. He is played by Peter Coyote.

The move to England. Rather easier than might have been anticipated given his record. He has a friend in England who lived in the US and was a partner. Which means that the British part of the film is his search for the partner, played by Mel Smith, who has allegedly disappeared. And the appearance of veteran Billie Whitelaw as his girlfriend. Coyote tangles with money power, and investment in a fun park. He is injured, to hospital, but bent on finding his friend, finding him, difficulties in the interaction, and the assassin from America is there – and an ultimate violent shootout at the fairground, hence the title, Slayground.

In Retrospect, a Curiosity Cinema Item.