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Étranges compagnons de lit

Original title: Strange Bedfellows
  • 2004
  • R
  • 1h 40m
IMDb RATING
6.2/10
2.1K
YOUR RATING
Paul Hogan and Michael Caton in Étranges compagnons de lit (2004)
Home Video Trailer from Screen Media Films
Play trailer2:05
1 Video
6 Photos
Comedy

Two 'very straight' old timers have to learn how to pass as a loving gay couple after falsely claiming same-sex status to take advantage of newly legislated tax laws.Two 'very straight' old timers have to learn how to pass as a loving gay couple after falsely claiming same-sex status to take advantage of newly legislated tax laws.Two 'very straight' old timers have to learn how to pass as a loving gay couple after falsely claiming same-sex status to take advantage of newly legislated tax laws.

  • Director
    • Dean Murphy
  • Writers
    • Sally Plant
    • Dean Murphy
    • Stewart Faichney
  • Stars
    • Michael Caton
    • Paul Hogan
    • Andy Pappas
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.2/10
    2.1K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Dean Murphy
    • Writers
      • Sally Plant
      • Dean Murphy
      • Stewart Faichney
    • Stars
      • Michael Caton
      • Paul Hogan
      • Andy Pappas
    • 28User reviews
    • 3Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 3 nominations total

    Videos1

    Strange Bedfellows
    Trailer 2:05
    Strange Bedfellows

    Photos5

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    Top cast56

    Edit
    Michael Caton
    Michael Caton
    • Ralph Williams
    Paul Hogan
    Paul Hogan
    • Vince Hopgood
    Andy Pappas
    • Post Van Driver
    Paula Duncan
    Paula Duncan
    • Yvonne Philpot
    Roy Billing
    Roy Billing
    • Fred Coulson
    Jamie Robertson
    • Carbo
    Kevin Dee
    Kevin Dee
    • Hughie
    Alan Cassell
    • Stan Rogers
    Stewart Faichney
    • Sergeant Jack Jenkins
    Simon Paton
    • Red
    Shane Withington
    Shane Withington
    • Father Xavier Delaney
    Monica Maughan
    Monica Maughan
    • Faith
    Jenny Dale
    • Local Lady
    Kestie Morassi
    Kestie Morassi
    • Carla
    Ashley Evans
    • Porn Site Boy
    Adam Pedicini
    • Porn Site Boy
    Glynn Nicholas
    • Eric
    Linda Adams
    • Mrs. Nankervis
    • Director
      • Dean Murphy
    • Writers
      • Sally Plant
      • Dean Murphy
      • Stewart Faichney
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews28

    6.22K
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    10

    Featured reviews

    9Loubear

    Go see this film and have a gay old time!

    This would have too be one of the best Aussie movies I have seen in a while. It has everything that works. The story keeps moving along very well, no dull moments, it doesn't try hard to get a cheap laugh and you can't go past the pairing of Caton and Hogan, two of the best. The best scenes in the movie are probably when Vince and Ralph(Hogan and Caton) are taught how to act gay and then hit the big city to learn a bit more than they expect! The soundtrack is also pretty good and a great aussie support cast is included in Paula Duncan, Allan Cassell,Roy Billing and Glynn Nicholas. English actor Pete Postlethwaite also plays the tax investigator sent to review their application and performs well. If you want to have a good laugh, see a quality movie then treat yourself to Strange Bedfellows, you won't be dissapointed!
    7hallmitchell

    Best Australian comedy in years

    This is the funniest movie I've seen come out of Australia. It has a laid back sense of humour that you don't see too often. It's got a great location. Funny jokes without being in bad taste. The two leads Paul Hogan and Michael Caton are a great pairing. The support cast does the job well.

    The movies has great scenery and the movie flows well, not one scene is wasted. The humour flows throughout and it's not a one joke movie. Accessable to all ages. This is the best work Paul Hogan has done since Crocodile Dundee and is ironic that this famous Australian seems to do his best work when he makes Australian films in Australia.
    Mikeonalpha99

    "I want to be the spouse!"

    If Australian viewers will cast their minds back to the seventies, they may remember The Paul Hogan Show, a variety show in which Paul irreverently played the larrikin host. The twist was that he would make a grand entrance wearing tight fitting black shorts and a rugby top – a caricature of a footballer.

    In Strange Bedfellows almost thirty years later, he cleverly parodies this costume by dressing up in close hugging spandex shorts and a black figure hugging tank top. Paul is probably having a good old chuckle at himself, and we are too, because there's generally lot of laughs to be had in this irreverent, and funny, but never offensive Australian film.

    This is the best film that Paul Hogan has made in years. He doesn't over-play it, he's instantly amiable and most of all, he's giving life to a character that fits him like a glove. But kudos should also be given to the talented Michael Caton, who at times, gently steals the movie from beneath Hogan's feet.

    Hogan plays Vince, a theatre owner in the small Victorian country town of Yackandandah. Vince's wife has recently left him and now he's left with nothing, apart from the single-bed he sleeps on in the projection booth. When he gets a letter from his ex-wife's accountant ordering he pay back years of back taxes, he turns to his best friend Ralph (Michael Caton), the town mechanic, for help.

    Vince has just read that the current government, in a race for electoral votes, is giving gay couples the same legal rights as married couples including a retrospective tax law that allows them to claim all the usual tax rebates for up to five years. Vince decides the best thing to do is become gay - at least on paper.

    Ralph is initially hesitant, but once Vince explains to him that it's just form filling bureaucracy, and that no one in the small town need ever know, he decides to help his best friend out. Things seem to be going well, until a letter arrives stating that a representative of the tax office is coming to visit, in order to make sure Vince and Ralf really are a same-sex couple.

    Vince and Ralf are forced to embark on a crash course in learning how to be gay. Enlisting the help of the local gay hairdresser, (Glynn Nicholas) they learn how to "place a hand on a penguin," wax lyrical over a photograph of Liberace and call each other "she" and "girl." They even take a trip to Sydney where they befriend a group of biker gays and drag queens.

    When the reserved and seemingly threatening tax inspector (Pete Postlethwaite) is sent to audit their claim, Ralph and Vince must try and convince him that they are a loving homosexual couple in a small town who knows them as anything but. Adding to the shenanigans is Ralf's daughter (Kestie Morassi), who is coming up to stay from Melbourne; she's devoted to Ralf, and has a surprise in store for him.

    What makes Strange Bedfellows work so well is the amazing script that never condescends to either the urban gay community or the country people of Yackandandah. Judgment is never passed, even though the rural folk might see the gays as "weird," while the gays might view the country people as homophobic. Stereotypes abound, but the tone of the film is such that one cannot take any of them seriously.

    Paul Hogan as Vince seems to be having a great old time; he's empathetic to the gay community, and seems to be opening his heart to a segment of society that he knows nothing about, while Michael Caton delivers a wonderfully warm character with enough complexity and self-contradiction to be three-dimensional.

    Detailed, effectively paced, Strange Bedfellows is crammed with characters you'll feel are old mates by the time the credits roll, but best of all, Strange Bedfellows is a terrific plea for tolerance and equality for the gay community, along with a kind of homage to the age old Australian tradition of mateship. Mike Leonard September 05.
    paston

    Funniest thing I've seen all year

    I like a good farce. It's a very simple formula, you wonder why so many films get it wrong. It starts with a small lie... and then a slightly bigger lie to cover the first one, and so on and so on. The secret is to make the underlying situation very serious. In this instance, the threat isn't being "outed" to the township, it's taxation fraud and the potential of being sent to jail that underpins the frantic farceurs.

    I watched the DVD of 'Strange Bedfellows' tonight with my partner and we both laughed like hyenas throughout. Even though most of the plot twists are obvious, half the pleasure comes from predicting what's going to happen next, and then seeing it actually happen as poor Vince and Ralph are plunged deeper into their charade. Michael Caton is brilliant, and Paul Hogan shines too, a few slightly wooden scenes notwithstanding. The rest of the cast allows anyone who's grown up with Aussie TV to play a quick game of "Ooh, isn't that...?"

    The tax law reform which sets the plot in motion is very improbable - now moreso than when the film was made just last year - but it's clearly just a mcguffin to get the plot rolling, and it's not worth slamming the film for it.

    Some people have been saying that the film is full of negative gay stereotypes; since the only part of the film with "real" gays (as opposed to Vince and Ralph's hilariously inept mincing) is set in Oxford St Sydney on a Friday(?) night, it's hardly surprising everyone's all frocked up for a night out. The important lesson here is that once Vince and Ralph sit and talk with them and get to know them, the gay guys are just, well, guys. Which is pretty much the moral of the story. Strip away the glitter and the glam, forget about who does what to whom in the bedroom - if you just stop and look, people are all just people.

    I loved this - it's the Australian 'In And Out'. More like this, please.
    7australian_skeptics

    Wonderful double act keep it Gay!

    Set in the heart of country Australia, with a short journey to Sydney in the middle of the film, Strange Bedfellows tells the story of two close friends, Vince (Hogan) and Ralph (Caton) who cook up a plan to take advantage of a new law that gives tax breaks to Same Sex Couples. Trouble is, Vince and Ralph are as totally straight and must 'camp it up' it order to convince the government's tax inspector (Postlethwaite).

    The laughs come thick and fast as Vince and Ralph, do what it takes to learn how to appear gay. The reaction of the locals and the great scenes set in a Sydney gay disco are only some of what makes this movie a winner. However the jokes, even the outrageous ones, are never at the expense of the gay community.

    This is the funniest movie Paul Hogan has starred in since the original 'Crocodile' Dundee. He and Caton are a wonderful double act, supported beautifully by the rest of the cast, including a manic band leader in the final scenes, set against the back drop of some of Australia's most picturesque countryside. The ending works very well with all the loose ends, twists and all, being tied up.

    Paul Hogan was a TV star in Australia long before the world met 'Crocodile' Dundee. Michael Caton is also well known to Australian TV viewers with memorable parts on many shows, from soap operas to comedy.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The film that Paul Hogan's character screens is The Last of the Knucklemen (1979) which also features Michael Caton and Stewart Faichney.
    • Quotes

      Ralph Williams: Vince! We're fucked!

      Vince Hopgood: No. Look, I'll keep Faith away from Russell; you come up with an excuse for the dancing; the ball will be finished, and we're done.

      [Ralph and Vince's gay friends from Sydney arrive on motorcycles]

      Vince Hopgood: We're fucked.

    • Crazy credits
      Yvonne did finally catch up with the mailman... ...it was love at first sight... ...they marry on Valentine's Day
    • Connections
      Features The Last of the Knucklemen (1979)
    • Soundtracks
      Looking At You
      Composed by Cole Porter

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    FAQ17

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 22, 2004 (Australia)
    • Country of origin
      • Australia
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Tout ou rien
    • Filming locations
      • Yackandandah, Victoria, Australia
    • Production company
      • Instinct Entertainment
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross worldwide
      • $3,481,387
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 40 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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    Paul Hogan and Michael Caton in Étranges compagnons de lit (2004)
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