Sons of Steel (1989 film)

Sons of Steel
Poster
Directed byGary L. Keady
Written byGary L. Keady
Produced byJames Michael Vernon
StarringRob Hartley
Roz Wason
Jeff Duff
Dagmar Bláhová
CinematographyJoseph Pickering
Edited byAmanda Robson
Music byGary L. Keady
Rod Keady
John Vallins
Release date
  • 1989 (1989)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$3 million[1]

Sons of Steel is a 1989 Australian sci-fi fantasy musical film written, directed and composed by Gary L. Keady and produced by James M. Vernon.[2]

Plot

The film is set in Australia, where an accidental future time traveler finds himself going back in time to change events to prevent a calamity. It stars Rob Hartley as Black Alice (who performed most of the songs for the movie) and Australian musician Jeff Duff (who sang "The Burn").

Cast

Production

The film is based on an original short called "Knightmare", written, co-directed and music directed by Gary L. Keady and co-directed by Yahoo Serious. Gary Keady developed the script for Sons of Steel from the short film, and the feature was shot in 1988. The short film was shown before David Lynch's Dune in theatres, and it received enough notice for major producers to show interest in turning it into a feature.[3] The Age's Buff's choice column describes the short as "a futuristic, post-apocalypse fantasy short which parodies such voguish cultural icons as World Series Cricket, Mad Max and The World According to Russell Mulcahy" noting it uses "fancy editing tricks, spacey music, slow motion, special effects and Mad Max inspired decor."[4]

Release

Sons of Steel premiered at the 1988 Cannes Film Market[5] which was followed by a very limited cinema run in Sydney and Melbourne in 1989 before a video release.[6] It was released in thirty two countries. It won official selection at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film and was a finalist at the Festival of the Imagination, Clermont Ferrand, France in 1989.

Reception

On The Movie Show David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz both gave it 3 stars with Stratton saying that "the plot's terribly complicated", adding "But despite all the confusion, the film is undeniably gripping."[7] The Canberra Times' Hugh Lamberton says "Sons of Steel is a heavy metal film which revels in its tongue-in-cheek approach to the serious issue of a nuclear holocaust."[8] In Australian film, 1978-1992: a survey of theatrical features Mick Broderick writes "The strengths of Sons of Steel lie in the imaginative, low-budget production design, cinematography and costuming, and (partly) in a convulsive outré performance by Rob Hartley as Black Alice. The film's producers must also be credited for attempting a very rare thing in local cinema production: a rock-and-roll comedy that is science fiction to boot. But for all of the revelry in its comic-book construction, Sons of Steel nevertheless aches to be taken seriously. Here the classic exploitation equation of 'having your cake and eating it too' fails, which only serves to heighten its reactionary subtexts of vengeance, violence and nihilism."[9] When writing about forgotten Australian films the Age's Leigh Paatsch writes "As Australia's most dedicated David Bowie impersonator, second-string pop terrorist Jeff Duff (who enjoyed some minor success in the mid- 1970s) took his careerist homage to its zenith by making a movie every bit as bad as any of the Thin White Duke's. Not so much The Man Who Fell To Earth as The Man Who Couldn't Get Airborne."[10] Peter Malone called it "A bizarre experience, to say the least."[11] On Radio National's MovieTime Jaimie Leonarder describes it as a "futuristic Orwellian despotic Sydney based nightmare over the top camp masterpiece"[12]

Accolades

Nicola Braithwaite, Nicholas Huxley and Gary L. Keady were nominated for Best Costume Design at the 1989 AFI Awards and the film was nominated for best original Australian soundtrack at the ARIA Music Awards of 1990.

References

  1. ^ Mick Broderick, "Sons of Steel", Australian Film 1978–1992, Oxford Uni Press, 1993 p. 285
  2. ^ David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p. 154
  3. ^ Free, Erin (20 April 2017). "Countdown: Australia's Top Ten Sci-Fi Films". FilmInk. Retrieved 26 December 2021.
  4. ^ Flaus, John; Harris, Paul (18 January 1985), "Knightmare", The Age
  5. ^ Urban, Andrew (13 May 1988), "Chinese the bookies' tip", The Age
  6. ^ Foster, Simon (19 February 2010). "Back from the brink: Sons of Steel". What's On. SBS. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  7. ^ Stratton, David; Pomeranz, Margaret (27 September 1989). Sons of Steel review. The Movie Show. SBS. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  8. ^ Lamberton, Hugh (16 November 1989), "Steeled up for the next cult", The Canberra Times
  9. ^ Broderick, Mick (1993). Murray, Scott (ed.). Australian film, 1978-1992: a survey of theatrical features. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p. 236. ISBN 9780195535846.
  10. ^ Paatsch, Leigh (10 November 1995), "The little Australians nobody wanted", The Age
  11. ^ Malone, Peter (11 August 2025). "Sons of Steel". Peter Malone's Movie Website. Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Retrieved 5 March 2026.
  12. ^ Leonarder, Jaimie (15 January 2010). "Sons of Steel with Jaimie Leonarder". Summer Trash & Treasure. ABC. Radio National. Retrieved 5 March 2026.


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