IMDB quote: A great period piece from the late Sixties. Depicting life amongst the arty 'set' in Sydney in 1969, it was one of the first Australian feature films to include homosexuality as a main theme. The film features celebrated Sydney drag queen "Candy" (Ken Johnson). Ex- Mavis Bramston Show star, Hazel Philips. The camp Theatre director character played by Michael Charnley is based on Robert Helpman. The film has a number of fun, campy moments, which helps make it a gem in Australian gay film history . The Australian tabloid press sensationalised the scandalous 'nude' scene by Hazel Philips in the swimming pool, rather than any depiction of homosexual relationships. Reporters broke the story in early 1969, during filming, about a year before theatrical release. Hazel Philips was quoted as saying that if Vanessa Redgrave was game enough to appear nude in a film, she'd like to try it too. The Soundtrack includes some groovy sixties lounge music by Sven Libaek . There apparently was a vinyl disc made of it. The Australian National Film & Sound archive hold a copy of the film.
Flixyflox quote: This movie is one of the most sublime experiences in Living Camp I have ever had.
God knows what people will think of this now but I personally had the time of my life making regular appearances (as a twenty year oild fag) at its prem screenings helping people along to do dialogue recitations and audience response to the screen. Fave scene is probably Sean Scully (who went on to a totally unrealted but distinguished if bourgeois career as an English artist) is encroached upon during sleep by mega butch straight guy Rod Mullinar (hugely sexy) who, drunk again has decided to experience his inner butch by fucking Sean. "Oh no " cries Sean -- "not like this"... Fade to gray. The audience whooped it up. The so called legendary drag diva, Lee Tracy who plays a society Trannie acts as though she's doing a number from early Fassbinder. (Convincingly, considered he hadn't even been seen at this stage.) The whole movie collapses into an irresistible mess of innocently privileged moments, all trying to be "naughty", and comes out the other side seeming perversely innocent. as indeed it really was. Audiences at the time used to lap it up to the point of reciting dialogue back to the screen, as if in some sort of religious trance.
This is one of those sublime moments in cinema, like Dreyer's Gertrud, which may perhaps not be easily replicated in a modern setting...or in these truly sordid, corrupt modern times....
[...] My error in the comment/announce : the distinguished Drag Diva is indeed Ken ("Candy" but not with a K) Johnson, not Lee Tracy (another Drag Diva of the period who once did a star turn in an amateur theatrical performance of All About Eve as Margot - of course - which was one of the most hilariously inept things I've ever seen.) Candy herself used to do regular pub routines draped across white baby grand pianos lip synching bad cabaret songs to audiences of fairly typical queens and rough wharfies laborers at working class pubs in the old Razor Gang district of Sydney at the time - just as she does here in fact, bu in the High Society milieu of the fabbo Elsa Jacoby and her Harbor waterfront mansion. Candy branched out the years this was filmed and became the proprietor of Sydney's (possibly Australia's) first gay sauna - it was called KKK (Ken's Karate Club), which itself is very much in tune with the era when everything pleasurable was illegal and subsequently seemed so much more fun than it does now. But I am possibly seeing the whole era through rose colored glasses - it was forty years ago after all.
http://rapidshare.com/files/299820751/The_Set.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/299846503/The_Set.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/299874645/The_Set.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/299891409/The_Set.part4.rar
no pass
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