Summer City - Un'estate di fuoco

The star of the film was John Jarratt, who freaked a lot of people out a few years ago as Mick Taylor, the psychopathic killer in "Wolf Creek", as well as playing the Sergeant in "Australia".

"Summer City" was one of the films made in the 1970s as Australia tried to get back to rebuilding a film industry that collapsed before World War II as the cinema chains found it cheaper to import films than to pay for local films to be made. Up until the late 1960s Australian Governments had no real interest in films, more important things had to be done. We did not get television until 1956 and if Melbourne had not held the Olympics in that year it probably would have been later.

Summer City in itself isn't so great, but it's fully worth watching to see stellar Mel in superb form even in his first professional outing, just like he was a class act in his first outing as director in The Man Without A Face, though 16 years more tremendously developed ('77-'93) in his craft. If you fast forward through most of the parts without Mel you won't miss much. Funny how for a supposedly minor part all the "stars" sought out his special character Scollop as if for validation. Already, even without the title, he was the star in his first appearance, and as selfless as ever. What a tremendous guy!

It's been 23 years since I have commented on this film. I was the director and it was my first film. As far as I was concerned it was never finished. Despite the ludicrously low budget it could have been so much better than it turned out. All the leading actors fell into a serious argument with the producer and refused to continue working on the project. I never expected to see it on the screen. The producer and editor padded out the film with meaningless bits of irrelevant stock footage to make the required length of 87mins to qualify for a feature film. As you can imagine I was disappointed and embarrassed. Some parts of the movie actually work very well. There was a lot of spontaneous adlib especially between Mel and Steve. The first time we saw Mel in closeup in a viewing theater someone said "He's going to be a star". I thought so too. One day I'll tell the whole story. It's more complex and funny than the film itself.

Viewers won't miss much of the 'Summer City' ('Reign of Fear' for us Yanks) plot if they fastforward to the last forty minutes of this movie, as much of the movie is just filled with scenes that look like minute preparation for a string of Mentos commercials. The ample cheery scenery and happy 70s romp music seem very contradictory to the thriller mood. Add to the mix a indiscernable audio (not that the dialogue matters much, anyways) and slurred slang, it is a pretty boring movie.

Four friends--I'm not sure if they're supposed to be teenagers (none of them look younger than 25, but there's some scenes where they look like they're at a school dance)-- take a road trip to kick back, hit the pubs, and go surfing. Tension builds among the group between Sandy, a quiet young man who is angered by the obnoxious, womanizing Boo who seduces a teenaged girl while on their trip in one of his usual one night stands. Meanwhile, the girl's psychotic dad is also looking for Boo out of revenge for what he did to his daughter. Boo is in for a major wake up call. This is essentially the only substance of the film, a very simple story with no major drama or action, and even a let down ending.

Despite Mel Gibson being heralded as the star of the movie, his named marqueed in large letters, he is pretty inconsequential to the movie, and has a very minor role.

What could've been more like a version of "Deliverance," turned out to be a very boring movie that suffers from many faults as far as story and production values.

Whoever wrote the last review simply doesn't get the film.

While there's a happy-go-lucky veneer to everything, like the surfing, the sex and "larrikin" behaviour (wild young lads basically), that's mostly on the surface. The scenery is actually far from cheery... in fact, it is used on some occasions in ways that could have been straight out of "Twin Peaks" (especially the shots of the sun rising over the sea), if it wasn't for the climate. The menacing Bush (no pun intended) is a common feature in Aussie films, perhaps too much so.

As for "slurred slang", this is how Australians speak. Sorry! There is only one part where I couldn't make it out, which is a rude remark Boo makes to a girl in a greasy burger joint. If Americans really need subtitles to work out Australian dialogue, I suggest they go and study the language at night class.

Mel Gibson is indeed wrongly touted as the star of the film on the packaging, but he is by no means a "very minor role", in fact he is one of the group of four young men on whom the action is centred, and who witnesses (and keeps quiet about) certain things which are integral to the plot.

Also the last reviewer is wrong about it being set in the seventies - it was made then, but from the title sequence, and the music which gets played it's clearly meant to be the sixties! So, I reckon the film has its flaws, but it's an interesting piece - if only to see Mel in his "introducing" role.