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They're a Weird Mob (film)

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They're a Weird Mob
DVD cover
Directed byMichael Powell
Written byRichard Imrie
Based onThey're a Weird Mob
by John O'Grady
Produced byMichael Powell
StarringWalter Chiari
Chips Rafferty
Claire Dunne
CinematographyArthur Grant
Edited byGerald Turney-Smith
Music byScore:
Alan Boustead
Lawrence Leonard
Songs:
Reen Devereaux
Walter Chiari
Mikis Theodorakis[1]
Production
company
Williamson-Powell International Films
Distributed byBritish Empire Films
Release dates
  • 18 August 1966 (1966-08-18) (Sydney, premiere)
  • 13 October 1966 (1966-10-13) (Australia)
Running time
112 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$600,000 (est.) or £234,925[2]
Box officeA$2,417,000 (Australia)[3]

They're a Weird Mob is a 1966 Australian comedy film based on the 1957 novel of the same name by John O'Grady under the pen name "Nino Culotta", the name of the main character of the book. It was the penultimate collaboration of the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

Plot

Nino Culotta is an Italian immigrant, newly arrived in Australia. He expected to work for his cousin as a sports writer for an Italian language magazine. However, on arrival in Sydney, Nino discovers that the cousin has abandoned the magazine, leaving a substantial debt to Kay Kelly. Nino declares that he will get a job and pay back the debt.

Working as a labourer Nino becomes mates with his co-workers, despite some difficulties with Australian slang and culture of the 1960s. Nino endeavours to understand the aspirational values and social rituals of everyday urban Australians, and assimilate. A romantic attraction builds between Nino and Kay despite her frosty exterior and her conservative Irish father's dislike of Italians.[4]

A tone of mild racism exists in the film between Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Irish characters such as Kay Kelly's dad Harry (Chips Rafferty) and Nino. Harry says he does not like writers, brickies or dagos. Nino is all three. But this is undermined when Nino, sitting in the Kelly house notices a picture of the pope on the wall. Nino says "If I am a dago, then so is he". Realising the impossibility of referring to the pope by that derogatory term, Harry gives in.

Cast

Cast notes

  • John O'Grady, the author of the novel, makes a cameo appearance as the grey-bearded drinker in the pub in the opening sequence of the film.[7]
  • Alida Chelli was the girlfriend of Walter Chiari, but almost did not get the part because she was thought to be too glamorous and might have upstaged Claire Dunne.[8]

Development

They're a Weird Mob was optioned in 1959 by Gregory Peck with him to direct but not appear, but he could not come up with a workable screenplay.[9] Michael Powell first read the novel in London in 1960 and wanted to turn it into a film but Peck had the rights. Powell obtained them three years later and brought in his long-time collaborator Emeric Pressburger, who wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym "Richard Imrie."[10]

Finance

The film was one of a series of movies financed together by Rank and the NFFC.[11] £166,925 of the budget came from the NFFC and Rank, the rest from the production company Williamson-Powell International Films.[2]

Casting

Walter Chiari had previously visited Australia during the filming of On the Beach (1959), which starred his then-girlfriend Ava Gardner. Claire Dunne was working as a weather girl when cast in the female lead.[10]

It was one of Muriel Steinbeck's last acting roles.[12]

Shooting

The film started filming in October 1965 and was shot at a number of locations in the area of Sydney:[13]

The film has been credited with the revival of the moribund Australian film industry, which led to the Australian "New Wave" films of the 1970s.[14]

Box office

They're a Weird Mob grossed $2,417,000 at the box office in Australia,[3] equivalent to $35,700,000 in 2022.[15] However it performed poorly outside Australia.[16] The NFFC reported its overseas earnings on the film as £207,821.[17] John McCallum said:

We never anticipated that the 'Mob' would do well outside Australia, and it didn't. In fact, it did below-average 'business in England, and apart from a few sales on the Continent it hasn't been sold anywhere else. Italy was a disappointment, particularly as we had Walter Chiari as the star. The trouble there was we couldn't translate Kings bloody Cross into Italian, or rather, when we did, there was no joke. Chiari tried hard, and we got other translators, but it just lost all meaning. We had intended to develop a TV series out of the film, but we realised that there was no future in it for export.[18]

In 1968 John McCallum wrote that of the $2 million the film had then earned, only $400,000 had been returned to the film-makers.[19] He later reflected, "It's our own fault; we were green and we signed a very bad distribution contract. We had an investment from Rank, who also distributed the film, and they bit very hard on the distribution. They took 35 percent, and that's far too high. Twenty-five's a fair thing. That extra ten percent was the killer. It's as simple as that."[18]

However, during the making of the film John McCallum worked with Lee Robinson. The two men formed Fauna Productions and had a great success in television starting with Skippy.

The Story of the Making of 'They're a Weird Mob'

A behind-the-scenes documentary was shot called The Story of the Making of 'They're a Weird Mob'. It aired on in Sydney on 12 August 1966 and in Melbourne on 22 August 1966 and went for one hour.[20]

DVD

The film has been released on Region 4 DVD by Roadshow. The DVD includes a TV special, "The Story of Making the Film They're a Weird Mob" as well as a picture gallery, theatrical trailer and optional subtitles.

The film has been released on Region 2 DVD by Opening in the Les films de ma vie series. The DVD has fixed French subtitles for the original English soundtrack.

See also

References

  1. ^ IMDB Soundtracks
  2. ^ a b Petrie p 10
  3. ^ a b Film Victoria – Australian Films at the Australian Box Office
  4. ^ "'The weird mob'—On film". The Australian Women's Weekly. 29 June 1966. p. 8. Retrieved 3 September 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ "Wardrobe to match star's busy life". The Australian Women's Weekly. 25 January 1967. p. 63. Retrieved 3 September 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ "Bright, but practical, wardrobe". The Australian Women's Weekly. 9 November 1966. p. 57. Retrieved 3 September 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ^ They're a Weird Mob DVD.
  8. ^ a b They're a Weird Mob at IMDb
  9. ^ "Greg Peck To Direct". Variety. 29 June 1960. p. 4. Retrieved 13 February 2021 – via Internet Archive.
  10. ^ a b "The Weird Mob goes before the cameras". The Australian Women's Weekly. 10 November 1965. p. 12. Retrieved 2 September 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ^ Petrie p 8
  12. ^ Vagg, Stephen (25 August 2019). "Unsung Aussie Actors – Muriel Steinbeck". Filmink.
  13. ^ IMDB Filming locations
  14. ^ Stafford, Jeff "Age of Consent" (TCM article)
  15. ^ AU = 1850-1901: McLean, I.W. (1999), Consumer Prices and Expenditure Patterns in Australia 1850–1914. Australian Economic History Review, 39: 1-28 (taken W6 series from Table A1, which represents the average inflation in all of Australian colonies). For later years, calculated using the pre-decimal inflation calculator provided by the Reserve Bank of Australia for each year, input: £94 8s (94.40 Australian pounds in decimal values), start year: 1901.
  16. ^ Petrie p 14
  17. ^ Petrie p 15
  18. ^ a b Denis O'Brien (3 January 1970). "Once more with dignity: Googie and John". Personality. The Bulletin. Vol. 92, no. 4685. p. 14. ISSN 0007-4039. nla.obj-1722018701. Retrieved 4 May 2023 – via Trove.
  19. ^ Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, p238
  20. ^ "Special on the making of a movie". The Australian Women's Weekly. 17 August 1966. p. 15. Retrieved 3 September 2012 – via National Library of Australia.

Notes

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