Drôles de zèbres!

Original title: They're a Weird Mob

1966
1h 52m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

An Italian sports journalist arrives in Australia but finds no work. The only employment he can find is as a builder's labourer. At first, he cannot comprehend the culture, but eventually he... Read allAn Italian sports journalist arrives in Australia but finds no work. The only employment he can find is as a builder's labourer. At first, he cannot comprehend the culture, but eventually he finds mateship and romance.An Italian sports journalist arrives in Australia but finds no work. The only employment he can find is as a builder's labourer. At first, he cannot comprehend the culture, but eventually he finds mateship and romance.

Director
- Michael Powell
Writers
- John O'Grady
- Emeric Pressburger
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

1.2K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Michael Powell
Writers
- John O'Grady
- Emeric Pressburger
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos20

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9:57

Storyline

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Trivia
"The House That Nino Built" was in Greenacre, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. Actors dug trenches, poured concrete, laid bricks, etc. The house was finished by George Wimpey & Co. Ltd. and then sold to raise funds for The Royal Life Saving Society. The stars footprints were set in concrete slabs in the pathway.

Quotes
Pat: You look a bit la-di-da to me for this kind of game. Where do you come from?
Nino Culotta: Italy.
Pat: You don't look like an Eyetie to me. More like a Jerry.
Nino Culotta: What is a Jerry please?
Pat: A Hun. A German. Or something that goes under a bed. Eyeties are not much better.
Nino Culotta: Do you know Italians?
Pat: I do. I was a prisoner of war over there.
Nino Culotta: Oh. You were captured by our soldiers in North Africa? Because my father was captain in North Africa.
Pat: Captured by your mob? Don't give me the tom tits. You Eyeties couldn't catch a bloody grasshopper. No - Jerries got me mate coming out of Greece - sunk the destroyer I was on.

Connections
Featured in The Story of Making the Film They're a Weird Mob (1966)

Soundtracks
Big Country
Words and Music by Rene Devereaux

User reviews27

Featured review

8/10

You'll be bloody right

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.