7uddard

7uddard

Released in 1991, this seventh film in the Old Man Suddard franchise is a prequel which looks more at the background of the Suddard character. Many people believe this film to contain the true origin of Old Man Suddard. This was the first and only Suddard film to be directed by French filmmaker, Pierre Escargo. Patty Rick reprised his role in this film.

Synopsis

The film opens in the year 1209 and features a young baby Suddard fighting alongside Genghis Khan. After a brief battle, baby Suddard leaves on a journey to become a man. He moves to Egypt where he is captured and forced to work as a slave to an evil prince. Suddard fights back and escapes, using a whip that he stole from a guard. He then leads the slaves out of Egypt and onto a boat in the red sea. The slaves quickly realize that they need money, and so they decide to become pirates. They pillage and plunder until Suddard turns ten and the child decides to move to the Antarctic in order to train his mind in the cold wasteland.

Saying goodbye to the pirates, he heads south where he quickly ends up in a fight for survival against an army of penguins who freeze him in a block of ice. Thawing out in the year 1500, Suddard overthrows the penguins and moves to Italy to train as a renaissance painter. After twenty years of successful art, Suddard has become a man and built himself some goggles. He heads to England on a journey to spread his art, but after an accident, he is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and imprisoned for 300 years. He dies but somehow magically comes back to life after praying to be revived. The English quickly think that he is a witch and deport him to Van Diemen’s Land. He escapes on a small boat to America but on arriving in a newly established settlement called Horton, Suddard discovers that he is weak and needs water. When the townspeople refuse to give him a drink, Suddard kills one of them and takes a hat and cabin from him before going mad and setting off on a killing spree. He is then rushed by the angry people who capture him and beat him to death. They dump his body in the black lake as Suddard curses the town with his last breathe.

Suddard wakes up screaming and looks at Man Child Suddard. He smiles before turning over and going back to sleep.

Trivia

The end of this film bothered a lot of people. They were frustrated but also intrigued as to whether this film was just a random dream by Suddard or whether it was a dream of Suddard’s memories. Either way, Escargo won an award for it.

Escargo originally signed on to create a prequel trilogy but decided against it in favour of writing the short lived musical television series, “Suddardy Night Fever.”

Fans were treated to an exclusive 7uddard sticker album during the release of this film. One woman was actually put into a coma when she was attacked over sticker 140, the rare Suddard’s hat sticker.

Up to this point, 7uddard was the highest budget Old Man Suddard film. Many scenes were shot on location, and the penguin expenses are believed to be the most money spent on Antarctic wildlife in a single motion picture. For this, the film won an award.

On the completion of this film, Patty Rick announced that he was writing his autobiography, “REEEEEAL GOOOD: The Patty Rick Story.”