SECOND TIME LUCKY

Rights Information
Year
1984
Reference
F2875
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
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Rights Information
Year
1984
Reference
F2875
Media type
Moving image
Item unavailable online
Place of production
New Zealand/Aotearoa, Australia, United Kingdom
Categories
Feature
Duration
1:41:00
Production company
Eadenrock
Credits
Eve: Diane Franklin
Adam: Roger Wilson
Gabriel: Jon Gadsby
The Devil: Robert Helpmann
God: Robert Morley
Director: Michael Anderson
Producer: Anthony I Ginnane
Associate Producer: Jon Turtle
Co-Producer: Brian W Cook
Screenplay: Ross Dimsey
Screenplay: Howard Grigsby
Adapted From A Story: Alan Byrns
Adapted From A Story: David Sigmund
Director of Photography: John McLean
Camera Operator: Michael Roberts
Production Designer: David Copping

When the Devil bets God that given a second chance, Adam and Eve would fail humanity, American students Adam and Eve are chosen by the angel Gabriel to prove the Devil wrong. In the process they travel across time and space while the battle between good and evil is fought.

“That Second Time Lucky is lavishly produced and competently directed makes it worthy of some analysis of its intended appeal and efforts made to make it succeed, even if the critical bottom line is that it is a superfluous addition to the year’s releases. The story is based on a concept as old as the cinema, if not humanity: a wager, a battle of wits, between God and the Devil for the souls and allegiance of mankind” - (Mark Spratt, Cinema Papers, December 1984)

“Screaming queen stereotypes and anti-gay sentiment abound and the Devil and his offsider are high camp. Ironically, with the exception of Eve and her two friends in the opening sequence, all the speaking parts are played by males. British actor Robert Morley is cute as God, but in his conversations with Gabriel the sequences are so badly shot and edited (they’re obviously not in the same room) they look pasted together [...] Ostensibly about Woman as Devil-inspired seducer, most attention is fixed on ways of taming the male member” - (Helen Martin & Sam Edwards, N.Z Film 1912 - 1996, Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1997)