Panther Squad

Panther Squad (1984)

When justice needs a deadly touch, the Panther Squad strikes back.

An astronaut has been abducted by a group of environmental terrorists. The New Organization of Nations decides to send a lethal commando "The Panther Squad", composed of sexy female mercenaries to get rid of the terrorists led by Barbara Wims and to free the hostage...

Date of release
1984-01-15
TMDB
3.6 / 10 (17)
Runtime
1h 17m
Genres
Science Fiction, Action, Adventure, Crime
Director
Pierre Chevalier

Casting

Interesting facts

The Panther Squad is a 1984 French–Belgian–Liechtensteiner action comedy film directed by Pierre Chevalier and starring Sybil Danning, Jack Taylor, Antonio Mayans, Karin Schubert and Donald O'Brien. Danning plays the head of an all-girl commando unit pitted against green activists, who have been manipulated by a South American dictator into sabotaging an international space program.

Production

When he was introduced to U.S.-based Austrian actress Sybil Danning, Daniel Lesoeur a.k.a. Dan Simon, producer and director of foreign sales for his father Marius' Eurociné company, saw in her the marquee name that could open doors to key markets, particularly Anglo-Saxon ones which had proven averse to his typically European brand of post-synchronized B-movies.

The project was announced as The Panther, but the title was changed to Panther Squad before filming. Although the narrative pitch was credited to one Ilona Koch, after whom the main character was also named, this was merely an alias for Daniel Lesoeur's domestic partner, Ilona Kunesova, who performed a variety of duties for the family-owned Eurociné.

The film was originally supposed to be helmed by Alain Payet. However, one week before cameras were set to roll, casting was still not complete, and several accessories mentioned in the script had not yet been procured, such as the flame-throwing blow dry used by one of the agents. Feeling unsupported, Payet demanded that the Lesoeurs hire a prop master to iron out the final details, but they refused.

Pre-production documents stated that photography was to start in May 1984 and last at least four weeks at a budget of FF1.55 million. Most of it took place in the province of Alicante in Spain, which stood in for the fictional nation of Guasura, while additional scenes were shot in Belgium.

True to Eurociné's reputation, The Panther Squad boasted frugal production values. The tricks employed to set scenes at U.N. facilities in New York, such as a wallpaper of Manhattan's cityscape placed behind a window, failed to convince. During the attack on the villain's personal guard, there were not enough military shoes to outfit all participants, and some of them had to keep their sneakers on.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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