Movie review - "Outbreak of Hostilites" (1985) ** (warning: spoilers)

 Ron McLean made this for his own company, he wrote and produced, David Copping the art designer directed it. It's about a family in 1939 - I wonder if it was a Sullivans rip off. McLean died in 1983 I think this was made in 1982 but didn't air on Oz TV til 1985 (I could be wrong about those dates). Copyright is 1983. McLean co produced this with Colin Eggleston.

Scott Burgess is a sensitive young man who has an affair with an older woman, Cornelia Francis - nice to see her in a change of pace. George Mallaby is Burgess' dad. The cast also includes Max Cullen, Moya O'Sullivan and Judy Nunn (who I didn't recognise).

It's fairly bland and dull. On the nose. I think McLean rehashed old movies he'd seen. The family seem to be constantly sitting by the radio listening to broadcasts from Menzies. The low budget is covered by having a lot of scenes take place at the beach or in the one house.  Oh and stock footage.

There is some war stuff at the end, tents on the sand dunes and some equipment. Mallaby has a decent death scene - actors love death scenes and Mallaby is a good actor. Then Burgess dies in an attack.

Just not quite sure of the point of it is. There's a flashback with an old lady in make up - Colleen Fitzpatrick I think who is Burgess' mother.

Directed by David Copping. Credits refer to Brisbane production runner... was this shot in Brisbane?

Movie review - "Innocent Prey" (1984) **

Junky, silly slasher thriller which was actually quite entertaining. It's a film of starts and stops - it never seems to get momentum going and there are plot holes but it has some effective moments if you get into the spirit of the thing.

It starts in Dallas Texas where PJ Soles (a rare lead role) is married to Kit Taylor (who is a superb villain). She comes across him in a hotel room having sex with a hooker (Debi Vorhees who was in a Friday the 13th film) who he then kills. He winds up in prison (Martin Balsam is a local cop) but escapes and chases PJ to Australia where she's moved in with a friend... into an apartment house with another psycho, a guy who perves on the inhabitants with secret cameras.

If you go with that conceit you'll have fun, with PJ Soles giving an efficient performace, Taylor very good, Susan Stenmark adding some glamour as Soles' hot friend, Grigor Taylor as Soles new love interest. The death toll is very high!

Based on a script by Ron McLean and directed by Colin Eggleston - their fourth collaboration after Airhawk, Outbreak of Hostilities and The Little Feller.

Movie review - "The Little Feller" (1982) **

 Ron McLean and Colin Eggleston combined to make this and Air Hawk for the Queensland Film Corporation - both produced, McLean wrote, Eggleston directed. It's better than Air Hawk not that that was hard. This feels very cheap and isn't particular well made but isn't without interest.

This has Steve Bisley in the lead as a man married to Lorna Lesley whose best friend Sally Conaberre becomes obsessed with Bisley. The three leads aren't bad.

It has some novelty being set in Brisbane - I assume it was filmed there, with glimpses of the river (a plot point has Lesley and Bisley living by the water at St Lucia and they think their kid has gone missing in the Brisbane River) - with touches like for instance a radio news broadcast talking about Minister Hinze and referring to Indooroopilly and Upper Mt Gravatt.

The story is a soapy standard - psycho obsessed with man, tries to wreck marriage. It's not terribly well plotted and Lesley is forced to act as a dill. It would've been better had say Bisley had sex with Conabere. But it has emotional power - I mean that's why these stories are soapy standards. The scenes where Lesley and Bisley think their son has drowned are moving.

The little feller, the kid (played by Steven McLean... presumably a relation of Ron), is required by story to hang off a balcony at the end and the kid looks genuinely terrified. It's stressful to watch.

The support cast includes Allen Bickford (as a cop) who was in a lot of TV plays of the 1960s.

Movie review - "Airhawk: Star of the North" (1982) * (warning: spoilers)

 The famous (ish) comic strip gets a TV movie treatment. Eric Oldfield from The Young Doctors was logical enough casting as Airhawk. 

The script was written by Ron McLean of Spyforce fame who also produced (Colin Eggleston co produced, David Stevens directed). The "plot" involves some crooks from Hong Kong (cue some stock shots) who are after Hawk's brother.

Some of this is incredibly dopey. Michael Aitkens in sunglasses hamming it up as someone called Cowboy. An assassination attempt on Hawk, his brother (David Robson) and two ladies (Louise Howitt, Eli McClure) on top of a Gold Coast high rise... via a man with a machine gun in a bi plane. Two baddies talking in European accents.

There's a weird plot where Hawk is being chased after for money owed by the tax office and he goes on a rant about how the government don't deserve it. Was this McLean having a whinge?

They don't get out to the outback until 43 minutes in when the piece picks up. We aren't told the brother is into diamonds until over an hour in. The two villains, male and female, talk in broad accents and ham it up. Presumably director David Stevens allowed that.Maybe he could have also done something about uninspiring blocking and slack handling.

Some good things: I didn't mind the twist at the end that the old lady was involved. And there's a well-shot chase at the end where a jeep is driving after a trio on horseback. The actual plane. (But it's hardly ever flown.)

But generally this is shoddy work an those associated with it should be ashamed of themselves.

A couple of old pros don't disgrace themselves: Margaret Christensen, Lois Ramsay, Myra de Groot. The Queensland Film Corporation invested in this!.

Movie review - "The Night Nurse" (1978) ** (warning: spoilers)

One of several TV movies Robert Bruning produced for his Gemini Productions. This isn't particularly well directed or even written but it has its moments and has a decent story and cast - Kate Fitzpatrick is a night nurse who goes to work for a retired opera singer who has a possessive sister. The film might've been better had we found out down the track the sister has killed someone but we find out in the opening few minutes - that's TV movies for you.

There's a good ending with Gary Day winding up dead and the discovery of a skeleton in the attic. The piece could have done with more atmosphere and spookiness. Fitzpatrick isn't exactly believable as a night nurse but it is fun to see her and she has that marvellous speaking voice; it's also great to see an Aussie movie which has two elderly female protagonists. This is as close as we get to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? I suppose.

TV review - "Spyforce Ep 23 - 'The Major'" (1971) ***

A highly entertaining Spyforce because of the support cast and subplots. Jack Thompson is sent to blow up a bridge in Burma and is given an accomplice - not Peter Sumner who's not in this, but Anna Marie Winchester as Jill Seymour, which automatically makes this a more interesting episode because of her beauty and sex appeal. They come across a base for a British long range patrol group, where Scottish sergeant Nick Tate has this sort of homoerotic thing going with an incompetent soldier he's bullying, and the local officer Tony Wager reads up on tactics and despite being less good looking than Thompson or Tate is the one who gets Winchester into bed.

Winchester flashes her nipples in a bath scene which is pretty racy, there are lots of explosions going on and high quality of acting. There are some clangy moments such as never giving Nick Tate a proper death scene or Wager a final scene, and having it all be part of some Cato conspiracy to help the Americans... which doesn't make any sense since they're on our side. Anyway, still, good fun.

TV review - "Spyforce" Ep 2 Death Railway (1971) **1/2

Jack Thompson and Peter Sumner are sent to blow up a railway being built by Allied POWs - hello Bridge on the River Kwai knock off, complete with John Meillon doing a very good take on the Alec Guiness role of an Allied quisling - an engineer who is helping the Japanese. Lorraine Bayley plays his wife back at home who chats to Redmond Phillips in what is an undeveloped subplot.

At one stage Katy Wild scolds Phillips for the ruthlessness of his plan which involves having Sumner and Thompson be deliberately captured so as to wind up in the camp. It doesn't make sense - far too risky and silly; the cynicism of Spyforce never sat easily next to its outlandish plots.

TV review - "Spyforce" ep 22 - "The Doctor" (1972) **1/2

Different sort of ep, being set in Sydney and spreading the heroism - Jack Thompson and especially Peter Sumner have relatively minor roles, the action also being driven by Redmond Philips and Bill Hunter. German agents have abducted the wife of a doctor to force him to sabotage penicillin.  There's a lot of running around the city and a few punch ups on ferries.

There's a scene where an enemy agent gets shot dead and because she's a young woman Bill Hunter goes into ethical conniptions about it eg "I didn't join the army to do this" and so on.  This sot of ethical angsting was common in spy stories in the late 60s and early 70s - the influence of Le Carre and shows like Callan, people seemed to think it was more "realistic". It never really worked in Spyforce though because the show's stories were so essentially silly.

TV review - "Spyforce" ep 21 "The Courier" (1971) **1/2

Gloriously over the top episode with Jack Thompson and Katy Wild escorting a Japanese courier and some top secret plans back from Darwin only to discover their pilot is a German secret agent. He abandons them in the desert but for some reasons I couldn't remember doesn't fly away - he lands to go and shoot some poor bit part player and then takes part in a brilliantly dopey North by Northweest-esque finale with the agent firing a machine gun from the air while Thompson is on horseback firing a rifle.

It's great to see an episode set in the Australian desert rather than the Pacific jungle and for Wild to go on an adventure - although I was disappointed she didn't have more to do (why couldn't she help capture the agent at the end instead of just watching behind a tree? why not have more of a romance between her and Jack Thompson?) There's no Peter Sumner in this episode.

TV review - "Spyforce" Ep 1 - The General (1971) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

The first episode of the cult TV series is set immediately after the Japanese sub attack on Sydney Harbour. New Guinea planter Jack Thompson is dragged from a pub to Spyforce, where Col Cato orders him on a convoluted mission - apparently the Germans want Australian troops out of Africa to help Rommel's campaign so want to give the impression that the Japanese are going to attack the Australians again when they aren't (hmmm... wonder what the soldiers in New Guinea had to say about that), and Thompson needs to go find proof. This involves him being teamed up with a fellow former planter who Thompson knows and hates, German Peter Sumner (they fought over a girl way back when). Thompson and Sumner bicker as they're sent back to New Ireland - it gets worse when it seems Sumner is a traitor but actually he's only pretending and they manage to get to safety.

There's a subplot about Cato interrogating a sexy German agent in Australia - this involves her being tortured by a member of Spyforce played by Max Cullen, who is clearly mad, and results in the Spyforce secretary (Katy Wild) being disgusted... Which is surprisingly dark, and reflects one supposes on the influence on bleaker spy shows like Callan. It doesn't quite work for Spyforce because Spyfore is basically silly; this nasty side kind of ruins the fun.

The adventures  in New Guinea are entertaining, if you overlook the illogical nature of the story (fighting the Japanese to hurt Rommel, the quick way they jet around the Pacific).

TV review - "Spyforce" Ep 20 - "Reilly's Army" (1971) *** (warning: spoilers)

After the death of a coastwatcher in the opening sequence, Jack Thompson and Peter Sumner (whose German accent feels more pronounced here) are sent to New Guinea to force another coastwatcher to come home. He's played by Chips Rafferty in his last role - filmed after Wake in Fright, apparently - and it's a magnificent part: an old planter gone troppo in the sun, leading his native army (a couple of extras really). When he refuses to come home, the guys are sent to blow up a fuel dump. There's a subplot about Rafferty's wife giving information accidentally to an enemy agent.

This is an entertaining episode, surprisingly cynical - Cato basically engineers the mission to force Reilly to come home, to such a degree that he encourages Reilly's "army" to be wiped out... though he claims its the fault of Thompson and Sumner.

It's a decent script from Peter Schreck, based a little of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. I was hoping for more of that, seeing Raffety go ga-ga, but he's relatively sane just a bit slack. It's great to see Rafferty acting up a storm and Schreck gives moments to support characters so their deaths actually mean something.

TV review - "Spyforce" ep 18 "The Samurai" (1971) **

A guilty pleasure - the sort of TV show I would have loved, loved as a kid, and while historically extremely dodgy, and extremely, extremely cheesy, is important for nationalistic myth because it does have some basis in truth, and reminds everyone that the Americans did not win the Pacific War on their own.

The series was about "spyforce" an Australian reconnaissance unit along the lines of the SRD, M Special Unit or Z Special Unit, who would do missions behind enemy lines. Every week they would zip in and out of locations that in reality would take weeks/months to get to and engage in plots that felt awfully familiar. The South Pacific settings looked very Sydney and the silliness quotient was high.

And yet... these missions did take place, they were dangerous. The series was in colour, had plenty of action. Jack Thompson was a terrific hero - handsome, cocky, brave - the best on screen handsome leading man in Australia since Grant Taylor. (Rod Taylor and Peter Finch didn't get a chance to strut their leading man stuff in Australia.)

This episode is about Thompson and sidekick Peter Sumner travelling to an island to assassinate a Japanese officer (played by clearly a Maori actor) who thinks he's a reincarnation of an 11th century samurai. That's not a bad idea for a character and I was looking forward to a battle of wills, really exploiting the samurai angle, but writer Ron McLean instead rips off The Most Dangerous Game by having the officer hunt Allied officers for fun (which again is a decent enough idea but more could have been made of it). Thompson takes time out to have a bath with the officer's mistresses.

It's silly but great fun if you're in the right mood.