Ourweekly columnStaff Pickstakes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme andthe "Staff Picks" section was the placetofind outwhat films were worthy of one's time.Of course, our version ofStaff Pickshas a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, we look at the wild and rowdy films of the 1970s Australian exploitation movement known as Ozploitation!
Like virtually every other country in the late 1960s, Australia celebrated the loosening of censorship laws against films by kicking off a golden age of exploitation cinema known colloquially as Ozploitation. It is a wide-ranging cinematic subgenre that includes many other genres like the Sex Romp, Horror/Thriller, and Action, tied together by a typically low budget aesthetic, Australian cast and setting, and extremes in sex, violence, and language. After all, what's an exploitation movie without excesses in those three key areas?
The Ozploitation movement overlaps with the so-called Australian New Wave that saw more high-browed films—some with plenty of low brow content—help the Australian cinema reach an international audience.In fact, Ozploitation is such a wide-ranging subgenre as to include films as disparate as Michael Powell's Age of Consent, George Miller's Mad Max, Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright, and Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant. These films all reside in various subgenres of their own—romantic drama, action, thriller, and historical drama, respectively—while also falling under the Ozploitation umbrella.
For further academic exploration of the Ozploitation movement, check out the feature length documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!We'll come back to this subgenre eventually, as it is one of the most skin-filled movements in cinema history, and we'll likely explore thefilms of second wave of Ozploitation in the 80s. This week, let's stick with the First Wave of Ozploitation flicks released in the 1970s, starting with...
Walkabout (1971)
For Brit filmmaker Nicolas Roeg's first solo outing as director, he went to the Australian Outback for this tale of two children abandoned by their father in the wilderness, who must rely on an Aboriginal boy on walkabout to guide them back to civilization. The book of the same name on which Roeg based his film finds a young woman and her younger brother stranded in the desert following a plane crash. Roeg changes the circumstances of their abandonment, choosing to have their father go insane, drive them into the wilderness and shoots at them, before exploding their car and shooting himself in the head.
Jenny Agutter, just 18 at time of filming, stars alongside Roeg's own son Luc as the orphaned children, and David Gulpilil as the Aboriginal boy. Both Agutter and Gulpilil went on to have long careers, the latter most famously playing Neville in theCrocodile Dundeefilms. Agutter was most famous at the time for appearing in two successful adaptations ofThe Railway Children, so having an established child star make her nude debut in this film was a big deal at the time.
Agutterspends a substantial portion of the film nude, this scene in particular a good crossroad to the water symbolism mentioned earlier.As a nude Agutter swims in a nearby pond, the boy hunts and kills several animals including an iguana and a kangaroo, the contrasting scenes intertwined...
Later in the film, the boy startles Agutter as she is getting dressed. Little does she know that he's attempting to perform a mating ritual, but she frightens him enough to convince her brother to run away with her the next morning...
The young Aboriginal boy meets a gruesome end while Agutter and her brother make it out okay, a strong statementat the time, but one that resonates nearly fifty years after the film's release. Agutter and her brother don't necessarily get a happy ending, however, as the final shot of the film is her as an older woman reminiscing about the carefree time spent in the company of the Aboriginal boy, swimming naked.
Available on DVD Blu-ray via The Criterion Collection or Streaming at The Criterion Channel
Alvin Purple (1973)
While not as internationally renowned as some of the other films we're covering today, 1973's Alvin Purple was critically panned but was a commercial smash hit—the highest grossing Australian film between 1971 and 1977—kickstarting a franchise that includes two sequels and a short-lived television series. Released in several international markets, including North America, as The Sex Therapist, this jaunty little film follows the titular amorous door-to-door waterbed salesman, played by Graeme Blundell, as he consults with a sex therapist over his inability to resist the many women attracted to his sexual magnetism.
Essentially, every woman he encounters wants to have sex with him, and he is powerless to resist. What a pickle, amirite? The only woman seemingly immune to his charms—and incidentally the only actress that doesn't go nude in the film—is his friend Tina (Ellie Maclure), who eventually decides to join a convent. In order to be close to Tina, he takes a job as a gardener at the convent where plenty more sexy hijinks ensue. Among the beauties the title character beds are Shara Berriman, Anne Pendlebury, Lynette Curran, Kris McQuade, and So. Many.More!
Plus there's even a bonus full frontal appearance from a 26-year old Jacki Weaver...
And yes, the critics were correct, it's not a good movie, or at least no better of a movie than Porky's, which is the closest American analogue in terms of cultural phenomenon and sheer amount of nudity. If nothing else, however, it's a true gem of the genre and one worth seeking out for any potential deep dive into the world of Ozploitation.
Scobie Malone (1975)
Based on the lead detective character from a series of novels by Jon Cleary, 1975's Scobie Malone was set to launch a franchise with leading man Jack Thompson hot off consecutive smash hits and a veritable cornucopia of stories to pull from the source novels. The film is based on Cleary's second Scobie Malone novel, Helga's Web, the film leans hard into the alternate meanings of private dick, turning off the author from ever letting his work be adapted into a film again—a rule he subsequently broke with 1983's High Road to China. I can't speak to its success as an adaptation of the beloved novel, but I can say that the film is an above average procedural mystery with a heaping helping of skin!
The film was known in certain international markets as "Murder at the Opera House," which about covers the extent of it. A high class escort named Helga Brand (Judy Morris) is found dead in the basement of the Sydney Opera House, leading our hero on a quest to find her killer. As a high class escort, she serviced many high rollers and titans of industry, meaning lots of people likely wanted her dead. While hot on the trail, Malone does a little bed hopping with such totally nude beauties as Zoe Salmon, Bunkie, and Victoria Anoux...
While the quality is obviously of too poor a quality to determine for sure, it looks like Judy Morris is having unsimulated sexprior to her demise...
After a private screening of the film prior to its release, author Jon Cleary washed his hands of the whole endeavor thanks to director Terry Ohlson's insistence on focusing on sex rather than intrigue. In an interview with Stephen Vagghe recalled the incident saying,"When I saw Scobie nibbling on the fourth nipple I thought 'that's not my Scobie,' and I walked out." Granted, I'm not as close to the original material as he is, but I think it's worth checking out as a curiosity if nothing else.
Patrick (1978)
While it's probably the least skin-filled of the films we're covering this week, 1978's Patrick is an absolute essential film of the Ozploitation movement. The title character, played by Robert Thompson, has spent the last three years in a psychiatric institution following his brutal murder of his parents. Now the damaged young man is set touse his telekinetic powers to win over the young nurse (Susan Penhaligon, in a role originally intended for Scobie Malone's Judy Morris) taking care of him, by essentially using his mind powers to control and influence the events and people around her.
The film was something of a critical and commercial disappointment at the time of its release, but has gained a substantial following in the ensuing years, with Quentin Tarantino even borrowing a shot for his 2003 film Kill Bill Vol. 1. It did receive a 1980 Italian giallo quasi-sequel with Patrick Still Lives, and the flick was also remade in 2013 with Charles Dance and Rachel Griffiths. It's also notable for featuring a decent amount of nudity for a film with a PG rating. In a flashback, we see Patrickelectrocutehis philandering mother (Carole-Ann Aylett) and her lover with alighting fixture as they hookup in the bathtub...
There's also a terrific underwater topless scene from Helen Hemingway as she takes ashirtless dip...
Available to stream via Amazon Prime
Long Weekend (1979)
Our last film is one of the craziest films ever made, the kind of ecological horror film that would knock Hitchcock's dick in the dirt. This film was shot in 1977, released in Australia in 1978, and made its way to America in early 1979 where it was mostly ignored by audiences. Cult film fanatics have helped the film achieve cult status in the ensuing years and the film was even remade a few years ago under the title Nature's Grave. The film's premise is simple enough, a couple (Briony Behets and John Hargreaves) are suffering marital problems and decide to take the titular amount of time and head into the wilds of the Outback.
Along the way, the two demonstrate an utter lack of care for nature, whether it's via non-stop littering and polluting or hunting innocent kangaroos, they prove themselves to be the ultimate in ignorant tourists. Little do they know, however, that mother nature isn't keen on their attitude toward her kin, who soon take unholy revenge on the couple, sending them running for their relatively worthless lives. Prior to all the running and screaming, however, the couple also makes time for plenty of sex, with Briony Behets baringher breasts in a series of sexy scenes like the one below...
Available to stream via Amazon Prime
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—Barbarian Movies of the Early 80s
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Non-nude images courtesy of IMDb
