The first trailer for the writer/director Stephan Elliott’s new film Swinging Safari (formerly titled Flammable Children) hit the net this week, reuniting Neighbours alumni Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue. Even by Elliott’s standards (his best-known films are Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and Welcome to Woop Woop) it is completely batshit crazy, depicting a view of the 70s rife with booze, sun, surf and sex.
The “swinging” in the title refers to the non-dancing kind. There are visions of kink aplenty, positioning the film in a pantheon of raunchy Australian comedies and/or what-the-hell-were-they-thinking feats of cinematic impropriety. This type of film exploded in the 1970s and 80s, after the country’s pernicious censorship laws were relaxed a little and a slightly more liberal approach was embraced.
To celebrate the first proper peek at Swinging Safari, here are five stupendously weird Australian “sexploitation” films that helped pave the way for it. I am not suggesting for a moment that Elliott’s film will be as weird as these, and this list is by no means comprehensive.
1. Pacific Banana (1981)
In a very Alvin Purple-esque role, Graeme Blundell plays Martin, a pilot who is banished to Banana Airlines after an unfortunate incident involving his boss’ ravenous wife. The company is an airline for sex addicts and offenders, where, in lieu of therapy, they are encouraged to offend more and more. Also to speak in lewd double entendres whenever possible.
Martin longs to fix his, er, medical problem: every time he is aroused he sneezes, and every time he sneezes he loses his erection. The director, John D Lamond, whisks us through various locations, some of them tropical and most involving topless women. Meanwhile, a cheeky gay narrator (Noel Ferrier) ribs and heckles Martin, seemingly unaware that he can’t hear him. Taking a leaf out of Alvin Purple’s book, Pacific Banana even has its own theme song, which (don’t shoot the messenger) goes like this:
It wants to come up, up, up
It always goes down, down, down
You don’t want to stop, stop, stop
No fun when you’re around
Your love life, it’s in a fix
Your love life, it has no kicks
But Candy may do the trick
Pacific banana
2. The Love Epidemic (1975)
What happens when you hire a director addicted to stunts, explosions and spectacle and ask them to make an educational film about venereal disease? You get The Love Epidemic, a hybrid documentary/drama/raunchfest from Brian Trenchard-Smith – the Ozploitation maestro behind Turkey Shoot, Dead End Drive-In, BMX Bandits and The Man From Hong Kong.
The film’s many WTF moments include a bizarre, quasi-educational comedy sketch in which two actors (Michael Laurence and Peter Reynolds) play Gonorrhea and Syphilis. The diseases have assumed human form, appearing as a couple of hardhat-wearing, stubbie-guzzling, hard-yakka power plant employees. The pair sink a brew while exchanging lines of dialogue such as “Be a sport, Gon, let me have this one.”
3. The Naked Bunyip (1970)
Who would have thought a hybrid drama/documentary featuring crudely drawn pictures of a mythical creature would change the course of Australian history? When the Australian film censors – at the time of The Naked Bunyip’s release headed by a notorious one-armed man named RJ Prowse (no, seriously) – asked the film-makers to remove chunks of the film, they refused. Sort of.
Directed and produced by John B Murray, and executive produced by Phillip Adams, the offending sequences were replaced by drawings of a naked bunyip. Coupled with a narrative arc about a timid advertising agency employee (Blundell again) tasked with conducting a survey about attitudes towards sex, the film ignited public debate and played a substantial role in the loosening of Australia’s notoriously strict censorship laws.
The Naked Bunyip also features the first film appearance from Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries). On the question of whether sex offenders should receive corporal punishment, Everage responds: “Oh no. I think some of them enjoy being whipped.”
4. Fantasm (1976)
The opening credits of Fantasm are overlaid on to extreme close-ups of a woman touching herself. After what feels like an eternity, a creepy professor in a brown suit and bow tie arrives to address the audience, telling us that the film we are about to watch will “undertake the exploration of the innermost mechanisms of the female mind”. Of course it achieves no such thing.
Directed under the pseudonym “Richard Bruce” by Richard Franklin (Roadgames, Hotel Sorrento) and produced by the legendary Antony I Ginnane (whose work includes Snapshot and Dark Age) the film is divided into chapters depicting various fantasies – from sex in a sauna to a kitchen encounter involving a strap-on. It is a feast of smut and soft porn, with a queasy, sleazy vibe that no amount of “oh that’s just the 70s” can possibly justify. Fantasm is best-known for a scene in which the well-endowed porn star John Holmes emerges, butt naked, from a swimming pool.
5. Melvin: Son of Alvin (1984)
You might be thinking: what about Alvin Purple, the mother of all Australian sex comedies? Including that film on this list could be considered a little cliche, so how about 1984’s lesser-seen Melvin: Son of Alvin? The second sequel in the series (after Alvin Rides Again) follows Mr Purple’s offspring (Gerry Sont) who, like his father, gets hounded by women owing to his inexplicable sex appeal. He also – like dad – has his own theme song.
Directed by John Eastway and written by Morris Gleitzman, Melvin: Son of Alvin is, like its predecessors, a hodgepodge of farcical situations and sight gags, of varying (generally low) quality. The film eventually explodes into delirium, climaxing with the sight of Blundell in drag – looking a little like Norman Bates’ mother – whacking his son’s gigantic erection with a teaspoon. As you do.
