Friday, February 02, 2007

Movie review - "Funny Things Happen Down Under" (1965) **

Don't know if this properly classifies as a movie, clocking in at around an hour and being a spin off of the TV seris The Adventures of the Terrible Ten, which was a pre-quota Aussie TV series about a 60s p_ssweak kids. It's best known today for an early appearance by Olivia Newton John, who is pretty as you'd expect and sings a song but then kinds of hang around as her friends try to make 200 quid to save their club house. That's a fair wack of change. They find they can make goats with coloured wool and get involved in shenanigans with wool buyers -it's all perfectly acceptible Pugwall stuff.

Never ending moments of interest - Livvy of course, Ian Turpie with uneven teeth as the rich brat who is still a goody (he sings his own song too), a teen girl of the gang who is still mature enough to have Turpie pant after her and she also lures another teen boy (who sings a song on horse Gene Autrey style) to raise money for the gang - a young femme fetale, lots of songs, a look at a time when you could make money from farming, a dance routine from two of the gayest shearers you'll ever see, a visiting Maori shearer who also sings, to counterbalance that example of multiculuralism there's a scene where one of the kids pretends to be a Japanese wool buyer. As important part of our culture as 2000 Weeks - perhaps even more revealing. Livvy had some star factor even then but cardboard factor too even then.

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