“Stone” 1974
“STONE”, Australia’s first feature film on motorcycling, is due for national release this month.
It offers two hours of colour action featuring the Grave Diggers, an outlaw group of Super4 riders, and a plot involving drug trafficking and political assassination, but is described as being “not primarily about bikies and more the examination of a culture”.
That description is from Stone’s Sydney-born co-writer, director and producer, 32-years-old Sandy Harbutt. Harbutt has been eight years in professional acting and television and first scripted his film four years ago when playing the role of a motorcycle policeman in the unsuccessful series “The Long Arm”. In the film Harbutt is the gang leader, and well-known Sydney actor Ken Shorter plays “Stone” (a policeman).
During filming late last year the production attracted the attention of the Board of Management of the Auto-Cycle Union of NSW which requested affiliated clubs not to support the film due to it being “injurious to Australian motorcycling”.
However the NSW Police Department gave active support to the project.
Stone is a policeman.
And with Stinkfinger, Flossie, Toad, Captain Midnight, Septic, Tiger, Zonk and Undertaker, he is the most controversial thing ever to happen to Australian films — and motorcycling.
Stone is a policeman and motorcyclist, a character who happened, says his creator, “because I wanted to share my love of bike riding with others”.
And the script that was conceived and first put to paper four years ago has made motorcycling’s ’74 “quiet period” — traditionally those first few winter months in every year — a hive of controversy.
In the boardroom at Kawasaki there were thoughts that supplying the fleet of customised 900s for the film was “risking the image”; a Management Committee meeting of the NSW Auto-Cycle Union decided to request affiliated clubs to have nothing to do with the production (despite several of the management board supporting the film, and one being present at the meeting in a “Stone” T-shirt); members of the NSW police public relations division and some traffic patrols were to feature in some very off-beat assignments assisting the production (after police approval of the script) and Sydney resident and former ISDT gold medal-winning motorcyclist Victor Hoffman was to work hard keeping 16 Super4s in good shape for the next day’s filming.
All because in 1969 actor Sandy Harbutt was in Melbourne with the television series “The Long Arm” playing the part of a young policeman.
“I felt that The Long Arm was the worst television series ever made and I was going through a very down period at the time,” Harbutt says.
“The only joy I had was riding my bike. I wanted other people to experience how I felt so I wrote ‘Stone’ with Michael Robinson.”
The film, which features Ken Shorter in the title role, is about a group of Kawasaki 900-mounted outlaw bikies — the Grave Diggers — who are being murdered after a political rally at which a politician was assassinated. Stone, a drug squad policeman investigating the murders, rides with the Grave Diggers and gets an insight into their unconventional way of life.
“It is not,” Harbutt told us, “a film primarily about outlaw bikies. It has a moderate amount of violence and a chase sequence which should give the non-bike rider the whole idea of what it’s like to ride a big bike fast.”
And between its conception and birth the people who got to know “Stone” best and finally to carry it financially were executives of the Australian Film Development Corporation, which rejected a request for backing in 1971 but accepted it on resubmission.
Finally, the frantic, running-beyond-deadline filming is over, and Harbutt can spare some time to talk about “Stone”.
He is producer, director, co-writer and actor, playing the part of Undertaker, the leader of the Grave Diggers. He is tall, well-built, sporting a full, untrimmed beard and looking like your average unkempt bikie. Obviously, he is well recovered from his policeman-on-a-bike days in Melbourne television, but is baffled and stung by the ACU’s rebuff of his “baby”.
“In the first place I don’t see how the ACU could have come to any conclusions without actually reading a copy of the script,” Harbutt says.
“If they had approached us and asked for a script, we would have been only too happy to let them have one, and if they objected to something in the film we would have been willing to talk it out and try and find a solution.
“In any case, I don’t see how the ACU is in any position to discuss the merits of a film script. What do they know about assessing scripts? Have they ever seen a film script before?
“Even the Australian Film Development Corporation has qualified outside assessors to decide on the merit of every script submitted. So I don’t believe the ACU is in any position to judge.” But Harbutt claims the ACU not only issued members with a circular putting down the film, they also wrote a letter to the NSW Police asking them to cease cooperation with the production.
“If the police had taken any notice of the ACU’s request we wouldn’t have been able to finish the picture. Without their cooperation and support we couldn’t have done it.
“The police had asked for and read the script,” Harbutt said. “They have given us every possible assistance and support; the Traffic Branch in particular because they helped us organise filming on public streets and expressways.
”When an American-based company with $1 million to spend decided recently to make a bike movie here the ACU willingly supported them. And I’m glad they did. But you can’t blame me for thinking their performance with ‘Stone’ is a poor show, particularly considering the very artificial plot of the American production.”
Later, we talked with ACU secretary Ray Coulter about the ACU’s attitude to the film. We learned that the “keep away” suggestion to clubs was not an idea he approved of personally, and he firmly denied that the ACU, as Harbutt claims, was the source of a letter to the police.
Composer/guitarist Billy Green (who also played one of the Grave Diggers) wrote the music for the film, which will also be released as an album. The two vocals in the sound track have been sung by Doug Parkinson and they will be released as singles.
The film has an all-Australian cast of 28. Ken Shorter returned from a theatre tour in England to play the title role and Helen Morse played Stone’s beautiful girlfriend, Amanda.
Sergeant-at-arms of the Grave Diggers (“Toad”) is played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, a British actor who decided to remain in Australia after a tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The spiritual leader of the gang is Dr Death, a satanist played by Vincent Gil. There is an aboriginal cast member, Bindi Williams, who plays the character of Captain Midnight. There are, of course, the lighter characters: Hooks, the perv, as played by Roger Ward; Septic, the Yank, portrayed by Dewey Hungerford; Stinkfinger, the comic freak, by James H. Bowles; and Zonk, the head, by John Ivkovitch.
The bikie’s molls wear the same dirty denims as the Grave Diggers. Undertaker’s girlfriend, Vanessa, is played by Rebecca Gilling, and other molls included Sue Lloyd as Tart, Vicki Anoux as Flossie, Ros Talamini as Sunshine, Jane Gilling as Euridice, Julie Edwards as Karma, Jude Mathews as Blue, Deborah Foreman as Bud, Karen Love as Skunk, Margie Ure as Jay and Eva lvkovitch as Tiger.
Other guys who hung in as bikies were Billy Green (the musician), Michael Robinson (co-writer), Neville Overall, Barry Butler, Peter King and Jimmy Walsh.
The three policemen, aside from Stone, are played by Slim de Grey, Owen Weingott and Ray Bennett.
Harbutt tells us he is a motorcyclist himself (a 750/4 man) but that he intends buying the ZI he used during filming as do several other of the actors.
Most of the shooting was done in the last three months of last year — “I wanted to shoot it as soon as possible and with as much sunlight as possible,” says Harbutt — and the locations were mainly in Sydney itself including North Sydney, Balmain, Whale Beach and Commonwealth land around Sydney Harbor. Bike runs were filmed on the Gosford Expressway and a highway near Nyngan, about 580 km west of Sydney.
During one scene, filmed outside the now closed Forth and Clyde Hotel in Balmain, the script called for the Grave Digger’s rival group to appear for a spectacular fight scene. The part of the rival gang was played jointly by the Hell’s Angels, the Lone Wolf and the Black Hawks. All the while a police public relations man kept an eye on the deal and there were no problems.
Everyone had a beautiful day!
Harbutt was impressed by the support the film has had from bike riders.
“We easily got the 400 riders needed for the Gosford Expressway funeral procession scene. Riders came from everywhere. Some came from Armidale, Bathurst and even Queensland because they’d heard about the run.
“Everyone that possibly could gave us assistance. Nobody asked for any money in return. They all wanted to help.”
The Expressway scene was for the burial of Go-Down who qualified for a somewhat corny connection with his name by plunging off a cliff.
Even in acted form, Go-Down was sent off in style. His coffin rested on the sidecar of Bob Levy’s Kawasaki outfit at the head of the procession, and police provided assistance for the filming of the scene to the extent of closing off a lane of the Expressway while the riders got under way.
Another scene involved the Army transporting cast and crew by landing barge to an otherwise inaccessible beach for early morning shooting. At its conclusion the cast was returned to nearby Balmoral beach where Northside bathers were treated to a sight they’ll never forget.
What would you have thought of a landing barge drawing into the beach and discharging a bikie pack complete with mommas and colors and all the things bikies have? The mob surged across the beach to their waiting bikes and away. We bet some people are still wondering…
Harbutt’s enthusiasm and belief in the quality of the end product has obviously been infectious. For one scene a deep vertical hole was needed for a corpse to be buried standing up and actor Hugh Keays-Byrne used his day off to dig in the graveyard in pouring rain!
Harbutt does not consider “Stone” a bikie movie (although a Hell’s Angel who read part of the script said “Hey man — that’s me!”
“It’s my message from those who ride to those who don’t,” he said. “I want to educate Mr and Mrs Average.”
Sadly, with most crusade films the people most likely to be educated are those most unlikely to attend.
But if, like us, the most you’ve seen of “Stone” is that very impressive parade at Amaroo Park before the last Six-Hour, you ‘II probably want to see more…
The Vintagent has plenty of interesting stuff on Stone, including a link to the 1999 doco “Stone Forever” and the original movie trailer.
In 2021, the Sandy Harbutt Memorial Ride was held, with the destination the Dubbo Drive In in western NSW for a screening of Stone. Snag from Info Moto went along and recorded the event.