Answers to Films Quiz 11

See also the page for Fremantle-related films on my other major website, australiancinema.info.

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1. Justice (Ron Elliott, 1998) wr. prod. Bob Roget; dop Alex McPhee, music Allan Zavod; Marcus Graham, Kerry Armstrong, Simon Westaway, Jamie Anders, Laura Black, Michael Loney, Dene Irvin, George Shevtsov, Tessa Moncreiff, Rosemarie Lenzo, Andrew S. Gilbert, Kim Fleming, Boris Radmolovic, Igor Sas, Kahren Hampton, Marta Kaczmarek, Andrew Hale, Paul Kristoff, Ewen Leslie, Michele Roget, Paul Roget, Jona Zeschke; West Coast Pictures; shot in Fremantle 1997 including extensive use of the derelict South Fremantle Power Station as a location, begins in Dago Bay in the Harbour, and includes a scene on Monument Hill and maybe one near a Pilot Cottage; no theatrical release; may have been available on VHS.

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2. Under the Lighthouse Dancing (Graeme Rattigan, 1997) dp Paul Murphy; Jack Thompson, Jacqueline McKenzie, Naomi Watts, Aden Gillett, Ingle Knight; WA
Six friends go to Rottnest for the weekend. Two of them (Emma and Harry - Jacquie and Jack) announce that they intend to get married, but have made no plans, nor do they have a licence. Emma also announces that she is very ill, and all she wants is a wedding. The other four friends then try to find a way to make it all happen ...
The house on Rottnest Island was built for the film. When the shoot was complete it was removed and reconstructed at 4 Durdham Crescent, just up some steps from the Bicton Baths. It's a pleasant film which doesn't make much impression but passes the time with picturesque visuals and romantic music. My friend Ingle Knight does a brilliant turn in a bit part as the Anglican rector. He has just the one scene, with Jack Thompson, and actually makes Jack look quite uninteresting. [This 'question' was changed in the second draft of this quiz.]

3. Where the Two Rivers Meet (Ken Kelso, 1999) short, wr. Ken Kelso, prod. Nicky Lukacs, Strike Your Heart Productions, dp Greg Knight, ed. Melanie Rodriga, music Kavisha Mazzella et al.; funding SBS, Screenwest; Kelton Pell (Rory [Willy] Dalton), Geoff Kelso [Ken's younger brother] (Clive Lewis), Stephen Baamba Albert (Pastor Ronny); broadcast on SBS Friday 2 June 2000 as part of Unfinished Business: Reconciling the Nation; and on ABC Channel 2 28 May; drama of two boyhood adversaries brought together by coincidence in adulthood, who seek to reach a mutual understanding about a corrugated iron canoe, among many other things; the two rivers are the Canning and the Swan, and the film was shot near their confluence, at Mt Henry; 26 min. I thought it was in YouTube courtesy of John Reed, but I can't find it atm.

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4. The Great Mint Swindle (Geoff Bennett, 2012) wr. Paul Bennett, Reg Cribb, dp Bruce Young; Grant Bowler, Todd Lasance, Josh Quong Tart, Shane Bourne, John Batchelor, Maya Stange, Jenny Davis, Michael Loney, Stuart Halusz, Igor Sas, James Hagan; telemovie made for Channel 9 2012; 95 min.
Unlike the 1983 telemovie The Great Gold Swindle (John Power, 1984) – which showed the Mickelbergs doing the crimes and so justly going to gaol at the end – the later version, The Great Mint Swindle (Geoff Bennett, 2012), though showing the details of the crime in great detail – as narrated by the Peter Mickelberg character! (Todd Lasance) – suggests that the brothers did only the nugget fraud, but not the big one. It’s a strange choice of a way to tell the story of something someone didn’t do – to have him tell how to do it.

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5. Upright, eight part series wr. Leon Ford, Tim Minchin, Chris Taylor, Kate Mulvany; Tim Minchin, Milly Alcock, Heather Mitchell; Foxtel
Upright is the story of two misfits, Lucky and Meg, who are thrown together by chance in the middle of the Australian desert and forge the unlikeliest of bonds in their quest to get a precious upright piano from one side of the country to the other.
The Fremantle connexion is in the eighth, last part of the eight, which looks to me as though the house that is the end of the journey is in John Street Cottesloe – but the final scene is of bathing at ... Bathers Bay. Strongly recommended; great show. Milly Alcock (playing a 13-yr-old girl) almost acts Tim Minchin off the screen.

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6. Thunderstruck (Darren Ashton, 2003) wr. Shaun Angus Hall, Darren Ashton, dp Geoffrey Hall, ed. Martin Connor; Roy Billing, Stephen Curry, Damon Gameau, Jason Gann, Ryan Johnson, Kestie Morassi, Callan Mulvey, Sam Worthington; AC/DC fans want to bury friend's ashes next to Bon Scott's: his marker is in Fremantle Cemetery; shot in Fremantle and Adelaide
The concluding scenes were actually shot in Fremantle Cemetery. There is a special entrance, the Bon Scott Gate, so that fans can quickly and easily get to his memorial (which is just a small plaque) without interfering with any other business in the cemetery and without making too much mess - because they tend to want to leave mementos, such as empty Jack Daniels bottles.

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7. The Pursuit of Happiness (Martha Ansara, 1988) prod. Martha Ansara, wr. Martha Ansara, Laura Black, Alex Gibson; Anna Gare, Laura Black, Peter Hardy, Jack Coleman; set and shot in Fremantle WA; female journo involved in peace movement; low-budget political thriller.
The main attraction in this film now, especially for locals, is the appearance of the Jam Tarts, four girls, two of which were the Gare sisters, Anna, who has a leading role, and Sophie, who is now possibly better known as the wife of Ben Elton. The story itself is rather dull and dealt with in a wordy way.

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8. Love in Limbo (David Elfick, 1993) aka The Great Pretender; wr. John Cundill; Craig Adams, Aden Young, Maya Stange, Samantha Murray, Russell Crowe, Rhondda Findleton; WA; 90 min. DVD, 99 min. tape; three boys drive to Kalgoorlie to lose their virginity; the garage they stop at was actually at the end of Davies Street Beaconsfield.
Charming film with lovely 1950s production design. Only two negatives for me: Crowe's 'Welsh' accent, and ... Aden Young.
This was the first film of both Russell Crowe and Maya Stange, but among the last of Craig Adams, who seems to have changed career after 1999. Rhondda Findleton has gone on to more serious stuff and plays the key role in a 2021 film, The Green House (Thomas Wilson-White). I remember her best for her work in The Hard Word (Scott Roberts, 2002), an outstanding film.

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9. The Joys of the Women (Franco di Chiera, 1993) WA; doco about the choir founded in Fremantle by Kavisha Mazzella AM, Le Gioie delle Donne; the film is distributed by Electric Pictures, 33 Canning Highway, East Fremantle: I actually went in and bought a copy there, tho they don't usually sell over the counter.
One of the women in the choir was Emma Ciccotosto, who has the second-most popular page in my "people" folder on FreoStuff (after Gino Saccone). First there a book, Emma: A Translated Life, by Emma Ciccotosto & Michal Bosworth, 'FACP; then there was the play by Graham Pitts, adapted from the book – which Deckchair Theatre put on in the 'old' Customs House, in Phillimore Street. The actress who played Emma was the delightful Rosemarie Lenzo, who, as I recall, cooked a meal on stage toward the end of the first act of the play and then served some of it to audience members. ... I'm afraid her character is very badly treated in the first film on the list above, Justice.
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10. How to Please a Woman (Renée Webster, 2021) wr. Renée Webster, prod. Tania Chambers, Judi Levine, Feisty Dame & Such Much Films; Sally Phillips, Erik Thomson, Caroline Brazier, Tasma Walton, Hayley McElhinney, Roz Hammond, Cameron Daddo, Alexander England, Ryan Johnson, Josh Thomson, Myles Pollard; Fremantle; comedy; When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman
must acknowledge her own appetite if she is to make a new life for herself.
The McElhinney family, more than one of which is a working actress, is from Western Australia.

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