Drôles de zèbres!

Recently restored and remastered (within a limited budget) for DVD release, this movie was a revelation in Aussie ways and customs, a near-to-totally honest portrayal of what it was like for immigrants arriving here back in the last half of the 20th Century (yes, it seems a long time ago).

The house that Nino built occupied a block in Greenacre, NSW, less than half a mile from where I was living at the time. I must have driven by it thousands of times. Previous prints screened on TV have been abysmal with washed out colour and scratchy images and sound. To see this near-as pristine print (for the most part) was an eye-opener and the scenes of Greenacre, Bankstown and other Sydney locations brought memories flooding back.

The cast of fine supporting actors makes the film worth watching, while the lead actor is simply perfect. One can't imagine anyone else in the part. The film flags towards the end but generally, it's great viewing.

Whoever you are, you probably have no desire to see this film. I understand. I had no desire to see it either. It was a blockbuster in its day, but only in Australia, and Australians are among the last people on the face of the planet who'd want to see it now. We don't want to be reminded what our country was like in the mid-1960s. Not that "reminded" is the right word, for most of us either weren't born or weren't here in 1966 (I certainly wasn't), and so it's easy for us to suppose that this film is nothing more than (a) a sustained exercise in wog-bashing, and (b) a celebration of everything we've all been earnestly trying to escape ever since the introduction of decimal currency and decent coffee. I'm sure most Australians, like me, will be thinking: If I watch this movie, how much will it make me cringe?

The short answer: okay, it probably WILL make you cringe now and then; but it's more moving, more witty, and more enlightened, than you might think. No wog-bashing. And it's NOT, as I feared, the 1960s equivalent of "Crocodile Dundee". Neither a kangaroo nor a swagman in sight. Powell even resists the temptation to show the Sydney Opera House as he pans over the harbour, probably because it hadn't yet been built.

I wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been directed by Michael Powell. And here I have grounds for disappointment, since there's none of Powell's usual visual inventiveness or splendour. But fair enough: visual splendour would have been beside the point in this kind of comedy, and it may have been fatal. It's not that there's anything WRONG with the cinematography. To compensate for the fact that it's not another "Black Narcissus" we get a nice, light, and in the end surprisingly touching, comedy. The obvious cultural misunderstandings (Nino thinks, for a while, that there's a region of Sydney called "King's Bloody Cross" - that kind of thing) are neither laboured nor over-stated. Nor are they really the point of the film. Sure, Nino solemnly does what everyone tells him to do as if he were an anthropologist entering a mosque, but the story takes us further than this.

By the way, you'll note that almost every spoken sentence contains either a "bloody" or a "bugger". Powell later said that this was the key to getting past the censors. If he'd been conservative and had his characters swear only once or twice, the censors would have insisted on minor cuts; but since everyone swears constantly, it's impossible to cut one scene without cutting the rest, so the film emerged unscathed - with a G rating!

'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 recently watched the DVD of this movie. Way back in the sixties it was a big hit at a time when very few Australian movies were being made. I am delighted to say that the movie holds up remarkably well. It is now a charming curiosity of another time. The plot is by now well known but I wondered if I would cringe over the way Australians were portrayed. I need not have worried as the characters are warm and earthy. It was wonderful to see some of those fine actors of the past, most of whom have passed away. Chips Rafferty is superb in one of his last movies. The only character that does not work is the love interest Clare Dunne who has a very cold screen presence. She sounds like she is taking elocution lessons on screen. The most pleasant surprise is Walter Chiari as Nino. He is delightful. Chiari had a troubled career, especially in his Broadway misadventure in the flop musical "The gay time" opposite Barabara Cook. The musical however sounds wonderful now, perhaps it was ahead of its time. In this film Chiari is enchanting and dam cute too. The real joy for most Aussies is seeing a brief appearance by the undisputed king of Aussie television Graham Kennedy. Graham allows the script and director to send him up. There will sadly never be another Graham but hopefully there will be many more Australian movies as charming as this. It really was a pleasant surprise. Do see it.

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.