Love in Limbo

This is a very sweet coming-of-age movie, very funny, and Russell Crowe is amazing! Those who know him only from Gladiator will be surprised to see the range of his acting abilities. Arthur Baskin (his character) is one of the best onscreen nerdy virgins I have ever seen1 Watch this movie--how can we get it re-released in NTSC format?

This film follows a young geeky Australian in his late teenage years in the 1950s. Expelled from school for drawing pornographic pictures (ah, innocent times!) he gets a job in his uncle's clothing factory and makes friends with two young men that work with him.

The young trio embark on a series of amusing set pieces - their first car, a drive in, a visit to the bottle shop and the outback whorehouse - that see them grow as men and friends.

Nice enough, and worth a watch if only to see a young Russell Crowe playing with a VERY bad Welsh accent!

Cant believe it.... after all these years finally tracked this down.. it was meant to be named 'The Great Pretender' at production stage. I was living in Oz at time and through a friend was looking after one of the house locations through filming.... It was me that showed these guys how to speak Scottish and after all this time, I only realise now one was Russell Crowe !!! It has taken me all these years to track this down, was even unsure if it ever went to screen as I left Oz the following month after wrap up party. At that time Russell Crowe was not the demanded actor he is now and I had no idea it was him until I saw the previous comment then thought back to the days during filming..... amazing... Truly delighted with myself now !!!

"Love in Limbo" is like an Australian take on "Porky's" or "Lemon Popsicle", only with slightly more engaging characters, and a less repulsive attitude to women.

The movie is set, of course, in the '50s. Why are these coming-of-age/sex comedies so often set in the youthful days of the filmmakers? Why don't they just set them in the modern day, and capture the youth market? There's not enough nostalgia value in this stuff to interest people who were teenagers in the '50s, even in the 1990s.

Anyway.

The protagonist in this film is an expert in sexual matters, but a virgin. He knows the words but not the music, as Groucho would say. Sex starved, he has devoted himself to the study of the act, but has no idea how to make it happen. There is much truth to this, and many people, young or old, can relate to having booksmarts, but no streetsmarts.

Ken Riddle, the protagonist, is even smart enough to make money off his obsession, producing pornographic drawings to sell to his peers in the days before Playboy, late-night films, SBS, and long before the internet.

His proclivity gets him in trouble, and he is expelled from school, so goes to work, where his supervisor is even more socially inept than he is: a Welshman by name of Arthur, who is played by Russell Crowe!

I have never seen Crowe in a role like this, and this is not surprising. He feels very strangely miscast. It is hard to believe that this movie came out AFTER "Romper Stomper"! Who the hell saw his terrifying portrayal of a psychopathic skinhead and thought, he's the man to play the priggish Welsh stick-in-the-mud who works in a clothing factory?

I can only assume the movie was cast or filmed before "Stomper".

Australian filmgoers may also recognize Martin Sachs, the guy who tried to steal the Super Mario voice actor's job in "Underbelly" (ugh), and the adorable Maya Stange as Ken Riddle's twin sister Ivy.

I have often felt that other countries' treatment of sex - especially in the awkward phase - is a lot more frank than America's, despite the perhaps literally infinite number of sex comedies that came out of there in the '80s (just try to watch them all).

This results in a more truthful, and even more erotic, experience.

Those American pics are made by adults, and yet seem to share the protagonists' attitude to sex.

Films like "Love in Limbo" are deeper, more knowing, and more empathetic.

If the film has another obvious flaw, however, it's in the double-miscasting of the protagonist, along with Crowe. I feel the movie would have benefited from a more charismatic lead actor.

I came across this movie in an Australian hotel room at 3 am. My brother and I were channel surfing and who do we see but a young Russel Crowe. But not the telephone throwing Russel Crowe we had come to know and quasi-love back in the states. This movie, much to my surprise, was amazingly creative and hilarious. It stars a cast of awkward teens with hilarious stories of odd sexual experiences, including a slick salesman,prostitutes, and an unusual sexy mother. If you are lucky enough to come across this film I would strongly suggest picking it up. I have to say this movie was amazingly entertaining and I thank the fine people of Australia making it...