Outback Oddities: NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD

For sheer unadulterated buzz and adrenaline alone, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION! is one of the best films of the year, and without a doubt, my favourite documentary.

Director Mark Hartley painstakingly compiles and interviews the incendiary few who went about creating a blistering blend of pure thrills in Australia’s exploitation fare of the 70s and 80s. Forging friendships with these mavericks of genre -- Philippe Mora (MAD DOG MORGAN, HOWLING III), Brian Trenchard-Smith (THE MAN FROM HONG KONG, TURKEY SHOOT), Simon Wincer (HARLEQUIN, also known as DARK FORCES here in North America), and Richard Franklin (PATRICK, ROADGAMES), the latter dedicated in his memory as this would be his last on-camera interview before his untimely death in 2007 -- Hartley manages to encompass and showcase the amount of hard work and sweat that went into the construction of these productions. Fans, like Quentin Tarantino and Jamie Blanks (also billed as co-editor), are on hand to dish about their favourites, while actors like Stacy Keach, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rod Taylor and George Lazenby wax enthusiastically about their time spent filming in the outback (although one slight complaint: far too little of Taylor for my liking). It’s also great to see screenwriter Everett De Roche (PATRICK, ROADGAMES, the underrated and soon to be remade LONG WEEKEND) get his due, so to speak.

Trenchard-Smith, a filmmaker I’d more heard about than whose work I’d actually seen, is tremendously funny in his detailing of the exploits about a less-than-eager Jimmy Wang-Yu during the making of THE MAN FROM HONG KONG (he despised white women); ditto Lazenby and stuntman Grant Page (a seminal stuntman, Page was also the serial murderer in ROADGAMES) on actually convincing Lazenby to play a scene with real flames burning on his back. (It’s a wonder more people didn’t perish during the making of these films.) Mora (and lead Dennis Hopper) speak out about the latter’s drug usage on the set of MAD DOG MORGAN, and Mora’s quite witty while explaining past admonishments to Hopper on the set.

Early 70s sexploitation fare is also covered thoroughly, though my interest in that area has never been great; expect plenty of discussion on THE ADVENTURES OF BARRY MCKENZIE (Bruce Beresford, 1972), ALVIN PURPLE (Tim Burstall, 1973), and FANTASM (Franklin as Richard Bruce, 1976).

Sandy Harbutt, lead actor, co-writer and director of motorcycle movie STONE, also comes across as positively loony – it would prove to be his only real work (Tarantino discusses STONE’s closing minutes as probably being the most accurate representation of the code of the road for motorcycle gangs, at least as far as cinema history goes). Not to be missed.

Richard Franklin (1948 - 2007)

I’m passing on the news of the tragic passing of filmmaker and Hitchcock scholar Richard Franklin, as it’s quietly being reported through horror film websites and forums these past couple of hours. Sadly, it’s been confirmed by the makers of an upcoming documentary on the PSYCHO films, who are in touch with PSYCHO II screenwriter Tom Holland. Franklin was just 58.

I first wrote to Richard a little over three years ago, and out of the blue, we struck up a correspondence about his career and his love of Hitchcock that resulted in close to two-hundred e-mails. It culminated in my profile of his film career for Senses of Cinema, but we still stayed in touch, and as of late last year, he was working on a Ph.D whilst teaching at the Swinburne School of Film and Television in Melbourne, Australia, and developing two new film projects: the first entitled BREAKWATER, with PATRICK and ROADGAMES screenwriter Everett De Roche, and the second being DEAD WHITE MALES, another theatrical adaptation from playwright Peter Fitzpatrick (HOTEL SORRENTO and BRILLIANT LIES). A test had been shot for the latter, and Franklin was in the middle of editing it when I’d last heard from him.

Having an enormous fondness for the late Hitchcock classics like TOPAZ and FAMILY PLOT, I had the sense that Franklin was really looking forward to making his own “late autumn” films in the years to come, with his own sense of wisdom and grace accrued through his time as both a Hitchcock-devoted director in Hollywood to a more character-oriented filmmaker back in Australia, his native land. It’s a tragedy he’s been taken from us so soon, but his legacy will doubtless live on through his significant and tireless contributions to film history. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to ask him about his craft at length, and I do believe that his reputation will only grow in time, with renewed interest in his life’s work.

My sincere condolences to friends and family.

Here’s a series of links from Senses of Cinema, with Franklin’s writings on both John Ford and his métier, Alfred Hitchcock:

Richard Franklin on John Ford

The Sixties, the Thriller, and the Judge

Directors as Depicted on Film and Television

UPDATE: from "The Australian"

Great Directors - Richard Franklin