Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!

Director Mark Hartley grew up discovering, and falling in love with Australian genre film on late night TV. Most of them have long been overlooked and are largely forgotten. And so he gives us the low-down on how, during the 70s, with the introduction of an R-rating, suddenly ground-breaking films emerged, smashing the era of conservative censorship. Scenes of nudity, the likes of which are seldom seen today, are celebrated and Hartley explores whether they represented liberation or titillation. He describes how, alongside high-profile “art” films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Sunday Too Far Away, there were countless other films achieving commercial success, but which were in no way considered high art such as Stork, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and Alvin Purple to mention only some of the better known of the so-called “Ocker” films.  Not Quite Hollywood gives us plenty of excerpts, often sex, booze and chunder-focussed from these, with hilarious anecdotes added by the likes of Barry Humphries and Graeme Blundell, whilst film critic Bob Ellis puts his derogatory one-bob’s worth in denouncing director Tim Burstall as “the scum of the Aussie film industry”.

Under the heading “Comatose Killers and Outback Thrillers”, Hartley unearths an astounding collection of Aussie horror flicks, like Patrick. the latter which influenced Quentin Tarantino on the Kill Bill films. Greg McLean, director of Wolf Creek, along with Wannell and Leigh of the hugely successful Saw films also speak of their inspiration via many of these early genre horror films. And talking of Tarantino, a wonderful plus is the generous use of the man himself, subtitled simply as “fan”, who talks enthusiastically about his love of these Aussie flicks and who adds an often side-splitting aside on all manner of socially unacceptable things!

The third part of the film deals with “High Octane Disasters and Kung Fu Masters”, in which we hear of the derring-do (all totally unacceptable in today’s OHS-ruled world!) of our fearless stuntmen, many of whom injured themselves seriously and, in a few cases, died on the job!  We hear about George Lazenby getting third degree burns in Man From Hong Kong, while bones aplenty break in the making of Mad Max. Tarantino speaks lovingly about the Aussie obsession with cars and the way in which Aussie cameramen shot them with a “fetishist” lens that gets him quite excited!

The list of people interviewed is remarkable. Many are pioneers of the actual films themselves – Anthony Ginnane, famed producer of umpteen genre flicks, actress Rebecca Gilling who undressed for many of the sex films, Jamie Lee Curtis who appeared in the outback thriller Roadgames (in an era when US actors were called in), producer and biting wit, Phillip Adams, Jack Thompson, Grant Page, our most famous stuntman . . . the list goes on, and each person’s anecdote or recollection is as fascinating as the next.

With so many in-your-face clips, wonderful trailers, incisive and funny interviews, and a lovely framing of the entire project by a nostalgic look at drive-in cinemas, this is a wonderful Aussie doco to be truly relished and to make you scour the op shops to see what you may unearth!

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