Funny Things Happen Down Under Premiere
NEXT Saturday the Princess Theatre reverts to cinema for the first time in 20 years with a season of Australian films for children.
As holiday entertainment for the very young is likely to be scarce this Christmas and home-grown entertainment practically non-existent, Pacific Films of Melbourne has decided to do something about it.
Spurred on by the success of They’re a Weird Mob and the demand for children’s programmes, the company has hired the empty theatre for eight weeks and re-installed a picture screen and projectors.
Four sessions will be screened daily, with a unique type of programme: The premiere of Pacific’s own color musical for children, Funny Things Happen Down Under, supported by other Australian-made children’s films.
Appropriately set at Christmas time. Funny Things Happen Down Under features the Terrible Ten children from the company’s TV series in a simple fantasy tale about youngsters in a bush town who discover a process for making sheep grow wool of different colors. “Star value” for teenagers is provided by local TV personalities Olivia Newton-John and Ian Turpie, who have leading roles and sing the numbers, along with Maori singer Howard Morri Quintend son and the Horrie Dargle.
Funny Things was made a year ago at Woodend and Macedon in Eastmancolor by producer-cameraman Roger Mirams and director Joe McCormick from a script by the late John Sherman, It has songs by Vern Moore.
Cost $32,000
The 80-minute film cost $32.000. It is the first color musical ever made in Australia and the first fully commercial, 100 per cent. Australian feature of any sort for about four years.
Yet it has been treated disgracefully by our cinema circuits.
The picture has enjoyed a successful commercial season in New Zealand, been sold to color television in Canada and been seen at the Commonwealth Arts Festival in London. But not in its country of origin.
All the major Australian circuits have turned it down, claiming they have no room for it in their programme schedules.
Producer Roger Mirams was finally forced to sell it to black-and white television in a version cut by 20 minutes.
As the basis of the plot is the joke about colored sheep, the whole point would be lost in black and white, and Mirams was forced to add new dialogue describing the colors.
Now, like other Australian film makers before him, he’s decided the only way to get your feature shown in the cinema here is to hire a theatre and show it yourself.
Supports
Supports on the programme will include Nullarbor Hideout a children’s adventure film about the Nullabor caves, made for the Commonwealth Film Unit by Eltham’s Tim Burstall; and, possibly, an episode of The Terrible Ten or an Australian cartoon.
The 48-year-old producer plans a children’s Holly-wood-style premiere for Saturday.
The juvenile stars will arrive in limousines and the auditorium will be decorated as a bush setting.
The colored sheep will be among the guests, too.
Proceeds of the premiere will aid the Yooralla hospital for crippled children.
Mr. Mirams hopes the Princess season will lead to the establishment of an Australlan Children’s Cinema, showing films specially made for the young. “There’s a crying need for one at school holiday time”, he says.
“And if the coming season is a success, we ourselves will go right ahead and produce another children’s feature for next Christmas”.
By Colin Bennett
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