Australia After Dark

Oh God! The tawdry awfulness of this expose of Urban strip clubs and dim shady sex in back-rooms....Australian style...and worse still, from the early 70s..........yecch. I too saw this film on first release (Noel, was that YOU?) and have lived to tell the tale. Made for about $3 on 16mm film and enlarged for exhibition, I would not be amazed to see this hilarious booby horror get a reissue today and be more successful than it was 30 years ago. The whole film looks like those bad sex movie re creations in BOOGIE NIGHTS..the ones that starred Chest Brockman and Dirk Diggler leaping over cars and being daring and sexy in plaid flared pants and platform shoes. Mostly filmed in Melbourne it features ghastly flabby white pimply chicks with tubby mustachioed guys getting it off for this fake doco purporting to tell us all how naughty these swingers are. One scene involving a boiled egg (it was peeled, I could tell) and a really hairy, um, you know, had us all choking and howling then...today's 20 somethings would just shriek more at how ugly everyone is IN their hilarious horror 70s fashions. Not made as a porno..we didn't make them ..but released commercially as a risqué feature it screened in many respectable cinemas and was a big drive in success probably with ALVIN RIDES AGAIN or something equally Oz- awful. Of course we all loved it. I am sure cult DVD awareness awaits. Kids today would just scream with laughter.

"Australia After Dark" is an awful, tedious pretend-documentary that runs out of excuses to show naked flesh about twenty minutes in and just starts throwing it at you without reason. Look, here's a spear fisher- woman... who does her job naked. Look, here's a random guy tired from a hard day's work going for a massage... naked. The movie shows us not one but two scenes of naked body painting, and then shoehorns in another scene of a naked woman being covered with food, this time.

Not even the constant nudity can stop this movie from being as boring as bat urine, though there was maybe one or two scenes that were worth seeing for camp value alone, namely a "witch" who uses his powers for "good, rather than evil". His acolytes are, of course, all naked women, and after hearing about what a good witch he is, we are then treated to the sight of a screaming young girl having her clothes stripped off and being tied to a cross upside down.

The ever-present narrator is irritating and embarrassing, and in the handful of times they allow some kook to take centre stage I was glad because at least it gave us a break from that condescending gentleman describing absolutely everything as though if he shut his gob for five seconds we'd be completely lost and our heads would explode. The few people who get to speak to the camera are not at all well chosen, such as some bint who rambles about UFO sightings (boring) and a guru who supposedly heads a new age cult, even though we saw him before with the UFO people... did they run out of money to hire another actor?

The best is saved til last, with a transvestite performer showing different guises and talents. This section, which lasts barely a minute, is more interesting than the rest of the entire movie combined. S/he should have been the focus of another, much better movie.

One last thing: at one point (well, many, actually) this crockumentary takes us inside a sex show where we see a lady stripping. The boring blowhard of a narrator builds it up to make us think that what we are actually seeing is a man, and this is just one of the many bizarre things that come out after dark in Oz, and we're lucky we have the humble narrator to take us through it in explicit tones, but... actually, it was a woman after all? I guess they couldn't afford a real she-male, just like they couldn't afford a different actor to pretend to be the guru, so they just got one of the UFO guys to fill his role, assuming no one would notice. The movie is, after all, so boring that it's a challenge to stay awake through it, let alone keep track of one person on screen to the next.

Sometimes it is better to leave things in the dark - no pun intended. But on the other hand if you are trying to shock people, you could do worse. This does include a lot of nudity and some explicit shots of love making too. I do wonder how this was perceived at the time? I reckon the scandal must have been big - no pun intended.

It is a collection of things. While this claims to be a documentary, it has scenes "recreated". On the other hand it also has issues that might have been tabu back then (and maybe even today) - like aborigines being drunk. It's a weird mixture we have at hand here - with an assembly of short stories of sorts. You may be down (under) for that or not - no pun intended. A curiosity for sure.

Supposedly a responsible and informative look at what adult Sydneysiders get up to in the Kings Cross district (This being the Times Square/Soho equivalent in this city).

Problem was, EVERYONE knew what went down there in 1974. They knew in 1954. I'm sure they had a pretty good idea in 1904?

Consequently this sensationalised account of supposedly deviate aussie behaviour went nowhere. I saw the flick on its release...I think there were 8 other people in the theater...and before you start labelling me a pervert (well, that I AM I guess, but that's not the point) I was covering the flick for a newspaper!

To date, I am reliably informed, the film has yet to return one million dollars!

Another one of John Lamond's little treasures, this doco has a fresh approach, focusing on the oddball goings on and outer ordinary stuff, once the lights go down in Oz. It even incorporates cafe de wheels in Sydney, that now has a franchise with it's killer chilli dogs. Witchery grubb and dead snake devouring are other tasty offerings which we were profitable back in 75. We also learn, every year, one person takes the big jump off the Harbor Bridge, which I found hard to swallow. Hadn't they heard of The Gap? This oz exploitation flick is not everyone's cup of tea, but what sucks us in, is that deep down, we really do want to know the bizarre and unbelievable, if shocking, which now is old hat. We have another plus, nudity, whether it's getting down and naked on a hot night in the calm waters of Port Douglas, or throwing paint off your body onto walls while lost in a theatrical dance, you'll see things you never knew existed. How I yearn to have a milk bath now. There are some things you just can't get your head around. And this is what makes this doco stand out in the entertainment stakes. The doco/movie knows how to paint a great ending too, a elongated scene of full naked kiwi girl underwater doing an expressive dance, and in clear view too, the film's highpoint. Another interesting element they touch upon is the tribal Aboriginals, where age expectancy isn't high. They perform a sad haunting song too. We also learn back then, Perth was the gay capital of Australia. And poor old Adelaide misses out, can you believe that? Are we really that dull? I forgive you. What's good about AAD is where one subject ends, a completely different one starts. You'll either be shocked of surprised, you never know what's next. All in all, an eye opener and a time passer, with a passing mark.