Half a masterpiece. I love it because I’m a big fan of the era, ozploitation, Ginnane and Trenchard Smith, Richard Franklin, etc. The film is full of energy and colour and pretty much uses the majority of nude scenes from those films, if you’re so interested, so that they’re located in the one convenient locations. It also has Quentin Tarantino talking about the films with a lot more insight than most of our critics (eg pointing out that no one shoots cars better than an Aussie).
It has flaws, though. For one thing it’s too much of a celebration – it doesn’t really deal with the criticisms of the movies in enough detail – in particular the misogyny inherent in a lot of them (there are an awful lot of tits and bush – and the cocks of John Holmes and Graeme Blundell as well, admittedly but more tits and bush; and the female point of view is limited to actors who appeared in them).
Also the issue of how these films fit in our national consciousness isn’t really dealt with - something important since many of them were financed using government tax breaks and direct funding. Alvin Purple made a lot of money, fine – but can you justify government money in Pacific Banana? Was Ginnane entitled to import all those overseas actors for his movies? (You don’t have to say he was wrong, but I think the other point of view needs to be better elucidated.)
It also doesn’t dig into the characters enough. There are key figures throughout – Trenchard-Smith, Grant Page, Ginnane, Everett de Roche – but we never really get to known what makes them tick, or go with them on any sort of emotional journey. Didn’t Ginnane go bankrupt? What’s the real reason why Sandy Harbutt never made another film?
(NB I also would quibble though that these films have been ignored over the years – David Stratton devoted many pages to them in his two books on the Australian film industry.)
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