by FilmInk Staff
Quentin Tarantino brought a whole new audience to Brian Trenchard-Smith when he declared the director one of his all-time favourites on his first visit here, nearly twenty years ago.
Since then, Mark Hartley’s Not Quite Hollywood has helped bolster Trenchard-Smith’s fame as a top action filmmaker. That documentary highlighted Trenchard-Smith’s long-term partnership with stunt performer/co-ordinator Grant Page in films like The Man from Hong Kong and Stunt Rock.
Still, Trenchard-Smith or BTS as his fans affectionately dub him, has had an extraordinarily diverse filmography overflowing with fine performances, great energy and a truly unique (some would say strange) sense of humour. Viewers with no sense of irony beware!
BTS has done a delightfully weird and spectacular sci-fi with Dead-End Drive-In (1986), an excellent family film in Frog Dreaming (1985), Vietnam War picture The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989), and a wonderfully tearful Aussie Kramer vs. Kramer in the sadly forgotten Jenny Kissed Me (1985)… and many others.
First picking up a camera at age fifteen in the early 1960s Trenchard-Smith has a reputation as a fan’s fan. His encyclopaedic knowledge of all things cinema and intense appreciation of everything from art movies to sand and sandal epics, and all points in between, has brought him respect from his peers, if not critics who have frequently condemned him for what the director calls ‘offences against cinema’.
Basing himself in the USA since the ‘90s, BTS now lives in Oregon where he is working on a follow up to his memoir Adventures in the B Movie Trade.
Famously erudite and very funny, BTS lived up to his reputation for charm and wit when FilmInk spoke to him about his life, career and the controversy surrounding the notorious 1982 gore-fest Turkey Shoot.
In Australia in the very early ‘70s, you were the go-to trailer maker.
“I made over a hundred trailers in my time. I got my trailer training in the UK at National Screen Service in the ‘60s (including The Italian Job and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed.)”
What makes a good trailer?
“Well, I can tell you what makes a bad trailer… giving too much away. I cut some exploitation trailers. With those, I threw in as much of the kitchen sink as I could and a bit of the drain as well.”
Tell us about how you got involved with the hugely popular Trailers from Hell series. This was founded by Joe Dante and Elizabeth Stanley in 2007.
“Joe and Elizabeth conceived the show with the idea that every film can be good for two minutes, which is the essence of the trailer. I was invited to participate immediately after they had seen Not Quite Hollywood (Mark Hartley) in 2009.”
Your TFH bits are big with fans. They are crammed with detail and very funny.
“Thank you. I wanted to do it with my own particular spin. I try to get as many factoids for the fans in them as I can. I cover a broad spectrum: distribution, exhibition, publicity and production problems or scandal…”
You have made many films and worked extensively here and in the USA. What makes a good director?
“The tone is set by the director. You have to treat people well. You have to be collaborative. But you must be clear about what you want. I certainly did not have that from birth. Early on, I learnt the best way to get the best out of a day. I shoot as an editor. I say, ‘that’s the image, how many seconds am I really gonna use of that image on the screen?’ I then have to calibrate how much I invest in getting that image.”
One of your key collaborators was Grant Page. You made a series of TV specials with him – The Stuntmen (1973), Kung Fu Killers (1974) Danger Freaks (19). Deathcheaters (1976) and Stunt Rock (1978) were built around him to a certain extent. You managed his career for a long time. What made Page special?
“We had certain things in common in our backgrounds. I was admiring of his physical expertise, something I did not have. He admired my daring, wanting to pull off [the spectacle] with meagre resources. He was basically a decent and honourable person. We had certain similar attitudes. I liked his ‘can-do’ attitude. A lot of the stunts we did were scary after the event.”
You have always been associated with genre filmmaking, action cinema especially. The early big hits of the Australian New Wave were comedies like The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) and Alvin Purple (1973) and the critics’ faves were ‘serious’ dramas like Sunday Too Far Away (1974) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Picnic came out the same year as your first feature The Man from Hong Kong. The myth is that genre filmmaking was actively discouraged by producers who needed the support of state and federal government agencies.
“I think that attitude came later. When I got going there was every encouragement to me.”
This was the very early ‘70s?
“Once I started making trailers, I began to develop relationships [in exhibition and distribution]. I had a reputation as a movie buff. The most supportive person of my early career was Greater Union executive John Fraser (who steered me through the troubles on Man from Hong Kong.). He told me around 1977, that I should do a performance-driven film. I would have loved to have made a Devil’s Playground (Fred Schepisi, 1976) and maybe because of my ebullient personality and strange sense of humour I didn’t always attract producers who wanted to make high minded material. I have to lay that at my door. As Tony Soprano said: ‘I am what I am’.”
The Man from Hong Kong was part send-up, part tribute to the Bruce Lee generated kung fu craze of the ‘70s. It’s a cheeky piss-take of Bond too – with George Lazenby who played 007 in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Peter Hunt, 1969) playing a Bond type villain.
“Yes! I was trying to do a number of things with it. I was always amused with the Dirty Harry [type hero] destroying persons and property in the name of justice. I also thought it might be fun to have the Aussie cops be so casually racist [in regards to the Asian hero].”
The film was a huge hit in places like Pakistan and Brazil.
“In Pakistan, they removed the inter-racial sex scenes. For religious reasons.”
In Not Quite Hollywood, there is a story about Lazenby knocking you flat after a stunt went wrong – he burnt his hand – in the film’s spectacular climax.
“Lazenby never hit me. He may have wanted to…”
Turkey Shoot (1982) was a send-up too. It satirised ultra-violence, while being ultra-violent in a story about a remote ‘re-education’ camp, a 1984 type-government’s idea of punishment … and amusement. Xenophobia and racism were the targets (as in many of your films.) The critics did not get the joke.
“Well, there are reviews that don’t get what I was trying to do. They do hurt my feelings and, I do have feelings. You have to harden yourself to such things. You have to say, ‘but to my own self be true’.”
There are a lot of myths about Turkey Shoot – that it was banned for its violence…
“It was actually rated M. What happened is that the producer Tony Ginnane (Patrick) entered it into the AFI Awards (now the AACTAS). That started the backlash. Tony was a showman. As soon you do something like inviting people [to be outraged, the AFI audience wasn’t the audience for the film]. One of the symptoms of a backlash is that there is talk of a ban after it was released! People said it should have been banned.
“But I am glad that Turkey Shoot has been rediscovered. I’m glad that its attitude to the dangers of authoritarianism are out there – albeit pushed to surreal extremist levels!
“At the core of the battle that is going on in America at the moment [is the idea] where those in business believe that the country would be better under an authoritarian [leadership] against those who believe it’s time to have the sort of social change that people really needed twenty years ago. I’ll now get off my soap box! [Laughs]”
Soon after, you did BMX Bandits (1983) – a Disneyish live action stunt/action caper comedy – with a teenage Nicole Kidman.
“I kinda knew Nicole was special even though there was some resistance to casting her since she was so much taller than the guys we cast. Doing BMX was pragmatic. After Turkey Shoot, it was a way of saying ‘take a look at these things about me you might enjoy more’.”
Two years ago, you self-published an autobiography Adventures in the B Movie Trade. It’s very funny. Very candid. And not at all like so many books of its kind, which can be, well nasty.
“One’s words say a lot of things about one’s character, I suppose. I wanted to be fair and truthful as I see it. Of course, we are all the heroes of our own story. I’m not a mean person and I thought it would be mean of me to skewer people who possibly deserve a bit of skewering. And the book is in profit.”
Brian Trenchard-Smith’s memoir Adventures in the B Movie Trade is available through regular outlets.
Stunt Rock, Turkey Shoot, and The Man from Hong Kong have been newly restored by Umbrella Entertainment and are out now on Blu-ray in Special Editions. Deathcheaters will be released next year.
