I recommend this...

Not Quite Hollywood, That's For Sure!

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

In many ways it was the movie we had to have. Not Quite Hollywood is the missing link in the story of the Australian cinema. And there’s a reason for that. In 1971, with the introduction of the R rating, the bastard child of the Australian movie industry was born, kicking and screaming with camp sex romps, over-the-top horror and crazy, tough-guy action sequences. It wasn't quite Hollywood, but Ozploitation had arrived. Writer-director Mark Hartley spoke to Citysearch about documenting this era.

Mark, this is the film every Aussie male film student would love to make.
It’s been a long labour of love. I first discovered these movies at 3am in the morning on TV – and I was just amazed. Films like The Man from Hong Kong and Patrick were incredible films – and I’d never heard of them before. The more research I did, the more I learned. It turned into a ten year research project.

Watching NQH is like getting a history in Australian film.
Absolutely. And the skill of the people who worked in these films was amazing - I realised we had to get these guys on film. They were a dying breed and I knew it would be the last chance we’d have to get them on film talking about their experiences. And for some of them it was.

Let’s talk about the Tarantino factor – how did Tarantino come to be involved?
After four years of trying to get this project funded, I pretty much gave up – it was impossible to get the money. But I’d done all this research – I had four years worth. I knew Tarantino was a fan of Ozploitation movies so I tracked done his assistant’s email and sent an email with all the research attached, saying the project had stalled, but all this work had been done, and knowing he was a fan, I thought he might find the research interesting. Within 48 hours I was on the phone with Quentin and he’s saying ‘Tell me what I have to do to get this movie made”. We did the Tarantino interview two years before the movie was finished, but that interview and the stuff he was saying really got people interested and believing in this Ozploitation genre – and so we got the money and the movie was made.

There are a lot of people who would say these movies were very exploitative of women.
Sure – I can see that! Interestingly, all the women we interviewed really took the roles in the early years seriously – and saw themselves as serious actresses. Then in the later years, those serious actresses had moved on and were replaced by models wanting to be actresses, and they were required to basically be models getting attacked by giant marsupials as the plots got more and more ridiculous.

We know it’s a hard ask, but what was your favourite Ozploitation movie?
That’s hard…the road movies set in the outback – movies basically set on a road following the thin white line – they really raised the bar for car chases and action – the Mad Max movies…and Patrick was one of the highest-grossing films ever in Pakistan! But The Man from Hong Kong, that was a fantastic movie – a really great Australian film – everyone should see that movie.

And while they’re at it, check out Not Quite Hollywood.

Cath Pope Managing Editor, Citysearch