Free-wheelin' sex romps! Blood-soaked terror tales! High-octane action extravaganzas! These are the main ingredients of Mark Hartley's documentary Not Quite Hollywood, a celebration of Australian genre cinema of the seventies and eighties.
In 2003, Quentin Tarantino shocked the audience assembled for the Sydney premiere of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 by dedicating the film to his favourite Australian filmmaker, Brian Trenchard-Smith (The Man from Hong Kong and Leprechaun 4: In Space), who was the country's leading exponent of action and exploitation films for decades. It appeared journalists, film-scene A-listers and indeed the Australian filmgoing public had forgotten that the industry that triumphed with art house classics such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and My Brilliant Career was built on the unprecedented commercial success of more exploitative cinema. The highlights of this history included the raunchy comedy Alvin Purple, Trenchard-Smith's Dirty Harry-esque kung fu film The Man from Hong Kong, psychic killer-chiller Patrick and, of course, Mad Max, which introduced the world to Mel Gibson.
A funny and furiously paced doc, Not Quite Hollywood is a treat for cult cineastes, a buffet of thrilling clips from obscure and lurid films sandwiched between ribald anecdotes and flashy animation derived from the films' original poster art and international ad campaigns. Stories of sex, shock and scandal ring loud. We hear from actor Steve Railsback about the producers of Turkey Shoot going to the horse track to extend the budget, and about the media backlash against Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, who were said to have put local actors out of work while shooting Roadgames. We learn that Dennis Hopper was pronounced dead when doctors discovered the amount of alcohol in his blood during the Mad Dog Morgan shoot. Tarantino, exploitation cinema's poster boy, gushes about car crashes and rampaging bike gangs in his favourite Aussie flicks.
Not Quite Hollywood is a rip-roaring tour through an unjustly forgotten cinematic era that was unashamedly packed with boobs, pubes and even a little kung fu. Get ready for the wild, untold story of “Ozploitation”!
Colin Geddes
Mark Hartley was born in Melbourne and studied at the Swinburne School of Film and Television. He began work in the film industry as an editor and went on to direct over 150 music videos. Since 2003, he has been working freelance for Umbrella Entertainment developing DVD special features for classic Australian films and facilitating the DVD releases of numerous “Ozploitation” titles. Not Quite Hollywood (08) is his first feature documentary.