Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection

Still from 'They're A Weird Mob'

They're A Weird Mob (1966)

A new 35mm print of feature and trailer are now available on request. Courtesy of Williamson Powell International Films and Kodak (Australasia) P/L and Atlab Australia.

National Film and Sound Archive National Collection
Title Number 7652.

Classification: G rating

Synopsis

Nino Culotta, an Italian journalist, emigrates to Australia and to find the sport writer's job has vanished. He eventually finds employment as a builder's labourer where he is soon introduced to the social rituals of his new country. He experiences the art of drinking in an Australian pub, surf and sand at Bondi Beach and a
lamington afternoon tea.

Background

Shot on location in Sydney, the film is set against the backdrop of beautiful Sydney Harbour views. With British director, Michael Powell, his British cinematographer, Arthur Grant, and his writer and collaborator on many films, Emeric Pressburger (used the pseudonym Richard Imrie), the film was still promoted as an Australian production. Made on a budget of $600,000, the film was a great commercial success in Australia. The film was was largely funded by local capital raised by then J.C. Williamson's manager, actor John McCallum. The first local box office hit for many decades, it earned more than $A2,000,000 on its release in Australian Cinemas. An important film in the re-emergence of Australia's feature film industry.

They're a Weird Mob was one of two films the renowned British director Michael Powell made in Australia in the late 1960's (the other being The Age of Consent (1969), with James Mason and Helen Mirren). This film was the last collaboration between Powell and Pressburger, the famous 'Archers' writing-directing-production team that made such outstanding classics of British Cinema of the 1940s and 50s, as The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, and A Canterbury Tale.

Director
Michael Powell

Year of Production 1966
Duration 112 minutes
Format 35mm (1:1,85) Colour
Optical Soundtrack Mono

Production Company
Williamson-Powell International Films

Producer
Michael Powell

Screenplay
Richard Imrie [Emeric Pressburger] - based on the novel by Nino Culotta [John O'Grady].

Director of Photography
Arthur Grant

Art Director
Dennis Gentle

Editor
G. Turney-Smith

Sound Recordist
Alan Allen

Cast
Walter Chiari (Nino Culotta)
Clare Dunne (Kay Kelly)
Chips Rafferty (Harry Kelly)
Alida Chelli (Giuliana)
Ed Devereaux (Joe)
Slim de Grey (Pat)
John Meillon (Dennis)
Charles Little (Jimmy)
Anne Haddy (barmaid)
Jeanie Drynan (Betty)
Barry Creyton (hotel clerk)
Graham Kennedy (himself)