Companion piece to the documentary is disappointingly slight – only 81 pages. Mark Hartley has gone on record as complaining that there is little written about Aussie exploitation films, which wasn’t exactly true – David Stratton in his books on the industry devotes many pages to the work of Ginnane, and especially the ocker comedies. They’re still a lot better source of information than this book – which doesn’t even feature all the anecdotes in Hartley’s film. It’s colourfully designed with lots of bright pictures and posters but you can’t help longing for a proper history of the industry. One that can tell the real story.
Maybe I’m being unfair here – I’m sure Harris wrote this to a brief – it’s just that I know Hartley and his team did so much research on the subject, I would have loved to see it. Especially since I got the feeling Hartley was a little compromised by his closeness to the filmmakers and his desire to celebrate genre films in Hollywood to give a fuller picture; maybe in a few years such a book will ensue.
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