They're a Weird Mob

This charming valentine to life in Australia in the 1960s and particularly in Sydney shows truly how good it is to live here.

Fortunately we are still not too far away from some of the Anglo working class types shown. It is only because the population has grown so much, particularly in Sydney since this time that 2004 is a difference in society. It was filmed just before the Vietnam War and recreational drug influx by US soldiers polluted Sydney morals and living standards, and on the verge of a huge American influence in advertising and consumer goods. Australia's immigrants were British and European up until that point. In the 80s there was a big rise in Arabic and Asian immigrants which has changed the face of Sydney literally.....but somehow the "Australian" sense of humor and egalitarian attitudes seen on this lovely film sort everyone out even today. The 2001 film DIRTY DEEDS is a good chaser to WEIRD MOB because it is set in 1969, and at the height of the American changes in Sydney.

'THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB' tells the story of an Italian's migration to Australia during the 1960's and his effort to adapt to this unusual breed of Englishmen living on the opposite side of the world that he soon comes to love.

The film is one of few Australian films made in the 1960's, and therefore given its subject matter, one of the most important time capsules of that era. 'THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB' was also probably the first Australian film made with a realistic eye to international distribution, not only because much of the movie seems to delight in explaining and translating many examples of Aussie lingo, but because it takes delight in simply showing Australians being Australians – and "them being a weird bloody bunch!" Technically, it is well-made movie and the acting quite decent. I was actually surprised by the number of shots achieved with hand-held cameras and steady-cams. Perhaps for what it is, it is a little too long, but no matter.

The movie paints an extraordinarily funny picture of how the ordinary Australian viewed himself in the 1960's: optimistic and belonging to an overwhelmingly cheery, egalitarian community. The working-male is presented not as a bludger, but as a generally reliable worker who enjoys nothing more than indulging in leisure activities with either his family or his mates. Upon finding work on a construction site in suburbia, Nino works diligently under the sun oblivious to his colleague's slower pace. He is told by his "mates" in a sympathetic tone to take a break: "there's plenty of time mate, she'll keep...roll yourself a smoke, mate / come and have a cuppa".

The movie almost seems like a propaganda movie for prospective immigrants, as Australia paints itself a destination inexhaustive of employment opportunities and as the land of opportunity, which in all truth it was. For instance, not only does our Italian protagonist find a job on his first day in the country, but even his future father-in-law - a prosperous building company magnate - started out from humble beginnings as a bricklayer upon his family's migration to Australia the generation before. For a learned critique of how Australia enjoyed "such a good lot" in the 1950s and 1960s, read the book 'The Lucky Country' (1964) by Donald Horne. 'THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB' paints ordinary Australian's as being overwhelmingly receptive of `New Australians' to such a point that they delight in submersing immigrants in the full extent of their customs and traditions which they relish as the best in the world.

More than anything else, the movie is a testament to the policy of assimilation during the post-war boom. As Nino makes a sturdy effort to adapt himself to the customs of the new country, most of the people he comes across display nothing if not their utmost admiration and respect for him becoming an Australian. On a ferry in the Sydney harbor, however, Nino comes across a drunkard who, after witnessing another group of ‘New Australians' having a lengthy exchange in their mother tongue exclaims "Bloody dagoes, why don't you go back to your own country?!" Sitting down, he asks Nino for a light of his smoke, to which Nino reluctantly but politely obliges in almost natural English. When he subsequently affords more hostility to the family, Nino consoles them in Italian to which the drunkard demonstrates his utmost surprise. This latent premonition of multiculturism – that is, that a New Australian could maintain links with his native country and its culture, yet still behave in all manners like an 'Australian' - was, for then, too much to ask of a previously insular, overwhelmingly Anglo society. Surprisingly, the drunkard is the only person in the move to adopt an outwardly racist tone, the movie generating the feeling that Australia is accepting of all immigrants who take a dedicated effort to assimilate.

Predating Bazza McKenzie and Paul Hogan by some years, the movie could legitimately be described as a document of propaganda, though this definition should not detract from its historical or artistic merits. Most Australian's would enjoy watching this movie for the parodies of Australian speech and lifestyle. For instance, a national in-joke is realized with Graham Kennedy playing himself in a hilarious cameo that serves to reveal the traditional Sydney-Melbourne rivalry. Asking for directions, he is given the cold shoulder by a loyal Sydney-sider to which he responds: "You're a Sydneyite?...I thought so. You're a weird mob up here, you don't appreciate art" to which he is told that it "must be a bloody weird mob in Melbourne if they keep watching you on TV." In any event, Australians would no more cringe at this film than they would at their parents' or grandparents' generation who actually had the privilege or misfortune - depending on how critical you are of the times and its achievements - of living in the time we see on the screen.

I have only just seen They're a Weird Mob and I have to say it was a great trip back to the 1960s in Australia. It's very cheesy of course, but then just about everything made in the 1960s was cheesy. It's a good story with some very good characters and actors, based on a book. These days the humour falls a bit flat, but even so there are moments, and the script is engaging, and certainly the homage to Aussie culture of the time is right on the money, sharp, and well written. This is an important contribution in terms of Australian film.

Delightfully light-hearted look into Sydney pre-Vietnam attitudes, still brimming with confidence straddling 50's conservatism and the beginning of the counter culture movement that emerged in the latter part of the decade. It was a very good time to be a ten pound Pom, or indeed any number of European immigrants who accepted the invitation, as Walter Chiari's character (Giovanni 'Nino' Carlotta) experiences, though not without comic incident as he tries to right his cousin's business debts. As other reviewers have remarked, a sort of humorous propaganda promo for Australian immigration.

The beer flows like rivers of amber nectar in a Gold Top commercial, the formal bars and building site where Nino comes to learn the Aussie vernacular; Ed Devereaux (pre- "Skippy"), John Meillon (who almost steals the show), Chips Rafferty, Anne Haddy was there much younger obviously than her later soapy salad days. Obviously the movie needs to exaggerate reality to create humour and I reckon you'd need to be *bloody* churlish to be offended, it's pretty harmless (self-deprecating in fact) when viewed in context.

A wonderful time capsule and source of nostalgia from Rank, perhaps a little bittersweet too when you consider how much of that beloved character we've since abandoned.... worth watching, should bring a smile to your face, perhaps even a little tear to your eye.

A largely accurate portrayal of typical Australian attitudes, lifestyles and aspirations of the era, this movie was a celebration of the country's easy going and proudly egalitarian spirit. And, even more significantly, as it predates the contrived, heavy handed and deliberately boorish "Ocker" nonsense that came into vogue a bit later, it remains an excellent example of genuine, laid back Aussie humor at its best.

However, looking at it again, all these years later, it now provides a stark reminder of just how much things have changed. Sadly, Australia is no longer quite the same sun drenched "workers paradise" where the average punter could afford a Sydney Harbourside home on little more than a basic wage and buy a crayfish (lobster) for a couple of dollars on a Saturday night. It really was one big endless summer.