*contains spoilers Now is a good time to start talking about the film Howson made around the same period as producer and writer – Boulevard of Broken Dreams (1988). This movie could have been a very bitter one, but I think it was written before the fallout of Backstage and anyway I get the idea…
Read more Frank Howson and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Part Two)
*contains spoilers When we talk about the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, most people might think of the 70s painting by Gottfried Heinwein (1948-), which features Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957 throat cancer), Marilyn Monroe (1926-62 barbiturate overdose), James Dean (1931-55 car accident) and Elvis Presley (1935-77 heart attack) in a late night diner. That painting in turn…
Read more Frank Howson and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Part One)
*contains spoilers “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan/A stately pleasure-dome decree”. These are the opening lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834 heart failure linked to opium use) poem Kubla Khan, inspired by Chinese history. Since this is where the name Xanadu came from for the movie musical, it is only fitting the poem was composed and…
*contains spoilers Name: Graham Age: 67 Occupation: Retired Public Servant Favorite Movie: Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969) Starring: Christopher Plummer, Robert Shaw, Nigel Davenport and Leonard Whiting First Saw It: In 1976 at the Schonell Theatre at the University of Queensland Plot: Based on the play by Peter Shaffer. Spanish conquistador Pizarro goes to…
And a word or two on Maslin Beach (1997), set on the eponymous nude beach in Adelaide. It’s your masterpiece in terms of script and direction. The nudity is not coy. Did you originally set out to make what is essentially a “European” movie? Maslin Beach was my ‘coming of age’, and the transition from…
You co-produced The Dreaming (1988) with Craig Lahiff and with Anthony I. Ginnane as executive producer. It stars Penny Cook who passed away recently. She worked with Lahiff, who is also gone, on the very good Hitchcockian slasher/horror Coda (1987). How would you sum them up? You must have known Lahiff well. The period 1984…
As the producer, what was the inspiration for Centrespread (1981)? How did it begin? In 1978, I began working with Newfilms in Adelaide, which was a production company owned by Justin Milne and Geoffrey Simpson. I learned my trade production managing documentaries, corporate films and commercials. Geoffrey and I constantly talked about making a feature…
*containers spoilers Now for The Dreaming (1988), which Wayne also produced, or The Nightmare as it should be known for its subject matter and slightly troubled production. It’s an epic! Well, for its limited budget of apparently just over two million, it is. From the opening credits, which has a shot taken by helicopter as…
*contains spoilers He is the head of Australian International Pictures, and it is no coincidence that it sounds like Roger Corman’s American International Pictures. Adelaide-based filmmaker Wayne Groom produced his first independent movie in the early 80s with a film on a microbudget which still sent him broke. It was unfortunate because what low-budget dreams…
*contains spoilers Name: JanAge: 65 Occupation: Retired Admin OfficerFavorite Movie: ‘night Mother (1986)Starring: Sissy Spacek and Anne Bancroft First Saw It: On VHS in the 80s at home with a previous partner Plot: Based on the Pulizer Prize-winning play, it tells of a middle aged woman who tells her mother she plans to commit suicide…
