A marriage of 70’s stunt work and 70’s theatrical rock
Popular Australian stuntman Grant Page travels to Los Angeles to work on a TV series and helps a fantasy-themed rock group with special effects & stunts for their live show. Meanwhile he develops a relationship with a journalist (Margaret Gerard).
"Stunt Rock" (1978) contains interesting info on stunt work and its history with several entertaining stunt sequences, including myriad flashbacks to Grant’s last several movies, but it gives equal time to the real-life band Sorcery (not the group from Chicago), their songs and concerts.
The story that links these two is given short shrift and the band members are clearly musicians/entertainers, not actors (in other words, they’re noticeably wooden). Page does fine as long as he’s working with real actors as opposed to the band members.
Sorcery’s music is a meshing of 70’s bands like Alice Cooper, Sweet, Zeppelin, Styx and Boston, just hampered by vestiges of Woodstock, if you know what I mean. They later did the soundtrack for the heavy metal slasher “Rocktober Blood” (1984) in which they adapted their style to the early 80’s metal scene, improving their sound with songs like “I’m Back” and “Killer on the Loose” (check ’em out on Youtube).
Monique van de Ven from the Netherlands joins statuesque Margaret on the female front as an actress on the show Grant is working on.
As a documentary on 70’s stunt work, this is entertaining enough, but I had enough of Sorcery’s music & performances by about the 55-minute mark. They’re no slouches, they’re just not on the level of Alice Cooper or Kiss to maintain the viewer’s attention, as far as 70’s concerts go.
The film runs 1 hour, 31 minutes, and was shot in Los Angeles and Sydney.
GRADE: B-
