Alvin Purple
Encyclopedia
Alvin Purple was a 1973 Australia
n comedy film starring Graeme Blundell
, written by Alan Hopgood
and directed by Tim Burstall
.
It received largely negative reviews from local film critics. Despite this it was a major hit with Australian audiences. Alvin Purple became the most commercially successful Australian film released to that time, breaking the box office record set by Michael Powell
's pioneering Anglo-Australian comedy feature They're a Weird Mob (1966).
The score and title theme were composed by iconic Australian singer-songwriter Brian Cadd
.
A 1974 film sequel Alvin Purple Rides Again
toned-down the sex scenes and nudity, adding more camp comedy.
This was followed by a 1976 Australian Broadcasting Commission
situation comedy
television series titled Alvin Purple
. Blundell reprised the title role in both, as well as in the 1984 movie Melvin, Son of Alvin.
which follows the misadventures of a naïve young Melbourne
man Alvin Purple (Blundell) whom women find irresistible. Working in door to door sales, Alvin (unsuccessfully) tries to resist legions of women who want him.
Alvin is so worn-out he seeks psychiatric help to solve his problems. His psychiatrist is, of course, a woman. Alvin ultimately falls in love with the one girl who doesn't throw herself at him. She becomes a nun, and Alvin ends up a gardener in the convent's gardens.
had worked extensively in film both in Australia and overseas in the 1960s and in the late Sixties he was closely involved in the foundation of the famous La Mama Theatre in Melbourne, established by his wife Betty Burstall. La Mama was a major focus for the new wave of Australian drama that was emerging at that time, showcasing many new plays, performance pieces and films by people such as Jack Hibberd
, Alex Buzo
, David Williamson
, Bert Deling and Burstall himself.
Burstall's first feature film, 2000 Weeks was an ambitious contemporary drama about a writer, starring Scots-born actor Mark McManus
(of Taggart
fame) and Australian actress Jeannie Drynan, which was very notable at the time, being the first all-Australian feature film produced since Charles Chauvel's Jedda in 1954. Although it was reportedly well-received overseas, 2000 Weeks was panned by local critics and it failed disastrously at the box office. The experience affected Burstall strongly and also influenced other directors and producers, including John B. Murray and Phillip Adams
, who observed the hostile reaction to 2000 Weeks and who as a result took their film-making in a more populist direction, as Burstall soon did himself.
This was followed by a low-budget surfing feature Getting Back To Nothing (1970). His second feature, the contemporary comedy Stork
(1972) was much more successful. As well as launching the cinema career of actor Bruce Spence
, who played the title role, it was the first of many successful film adaptations of plays by renowned Australian dramatist David Williamson
. Stork was adapted from his play The Coming of Stork
, which had premiered at La Mama.
In 1972 Burstall became a partner in a new film production company, Hexagon Productions. The brief for its first project was to make an "Australian Decameron", and Burstall chose a screenplay by actor and playwright Alan Hopgood
.
Hopgood had enjoyed considerable critical success in the early 1960s with his Aussie rules football satire And The Big Men Fly and he was well-known to TV audiences at the time for his long-running role as the town doctor in the ABC
's Bellbird
.
In 2008 Catharine Lumby wrote a book about the film in the Australian Screen Classic Series.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n comedy film starring Graeme Blundell
Graeme Blundell
Graeme Blundell is an Australian actor, director, producer, writer and biographer.Blundell was born in Melbourne; he grew up in Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne...
, written by Alan Hopgood
Alan Hopgood
Alan Hopgood is an Australian actor and writer.He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne. Hopgood's first very successful play was And the Big Men Fly in 1963. It was adapted for TV by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1973...
and directed by Tim Burstall
Tim Burstall
Tim Burstall was an Australian film director, writer and producer, best known for the motion picture Alvin Purple....
.
It received largely negative reviews from local film critics. Despite this it was a major hit with Australian audiences. Alvin Purple became the most commercially successful Australian film released to that time, breaking the box office record set by Michael Powell
Michael Powell (director)
Michael Latham Powell was a renowned English film director, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger...
's pioneering Anglo-Australian comedy feature They're a Weird Mob (1966).
The score and title theme were composed by iconic Australian singer-songwriter Brian Cadd
Brian Cadd
Brian George Cadd is an Australian singer-songwriter, keyboardist and producer who has performed as a member of The Groop, Axiom, Flying Burrito Brothers and solo...
.
A 1974 film sequel Alvin Purple Rides Again
Alvin Purple Rides Again
Alvin Purple Rides Again is a 1974 Australian sex-comedy film sequel to Alvin Purple. It was directed by David Bilcock and Robin Copping. It was rated M unlike its predecessor which was rated R. Alvin Rides Again still features a lot of full frontal nudity.-Plot:The irresistible Alvin Purple...
toned-down the sex scenes and nudity, adding more camp comedy.
This was followed by a 1976 Australian Broadcasting Commission
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
television series titled Alvin Purple
Alvin Purple (TV series)
Alvin Purple was an Australian television situation comedy series made by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1976.The series followed continued adventures of the title character, previously featured in successful sex comedy feature films Alvin Purple and Alvin Purple Rides Again .Graeme...
. Blundell reprised the title role in both, as well as in the 1984 movie Melvin, Son of Alvin.
Story
The film is a sex-farceBedroom farce
A bedroom farce or sex farce is a type of light comedy, centered on the sexual pairings and recombinations of characters as they move through improbable plots and slamming doors...
which follows the misadventures of a naïve young Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
man Alvin Purple (Blundell) whom women find irresistible. Working in door to door sales, Alvin (unsuccessfully) tries to resist legions of women who want him.
Alvin is so worn-out he seeks psychiatric help to solve his problems. His psychiatrist is, of course, a woman. Alvin ultimately falls in love with the one girl who doesn't throw herself at him. She becomes a nun, and Alvin ends up a gardener in the convent's gardens.
Cast
- Graeme Blundell as Alvin Purple
- AbigailAbigail (actress)Abigail is an actress who emigrated to Australia in 1968 and via the media of television became one of that country's significant sex symbols of the mid-1970s. Although born in England, she was educated in France. Her mother was a Ceylonese of Dutch Burgher/Eurasian ethnicity...
as Girl in See-Through - Lynette CurranLynette CurranLynette Curran is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Australian television series and films. Between 1967 and 1974 she was a regular in soap opera Bellbird. She also acted in the film version of the serial, Country Town ....
as First Sugar Girl - Jacki WeaverJacki WeaverJacqueline Ruth "Jacki" Weaver is an Australian theatre, film and television actress. She is best known outside Australia for her performance in Animal Kingdom, for which she was nominated for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.-Career:Jacki Weaver has been working in Australian...
as Second Sugar Girl - Christine AmorChristine AmorChristine Amor is an Australian actress mostly remembered for her television work.She has acted extensively in television guest roles and in Australian film starting in 1973. Film roles include Alvin Purple , Petersen , Snapshot...
as Peggy - Dina MannDina MannDina Mann is an Australian actress recognised for several television soap opera and film roles in the 1970s and 1980s.In the 1970s Mann specialised in playing characters much younger than herself in adult-themed dramas and comedies...
as Shirley - Penne Hackforth-JonesPenne Hackforth-JonesPenne Hackforth-Jones is an American-born Australian actress and writer.She has a number of television credits such as Bellbird, Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Tandarra, Cash and Company, Young Ramsay, Punishment, Bellamy, A Country Practice, Mother and Son, Tanamera - Lion of Singapore,...
as Dr. Liz Sort - George Whaley as Dr. McBurney
- Dennis Miller as Mr. Horwood
- Jill ForsterJill Forster-Career:Fortster has been in numerous Australian television dramas including Motel, Number 96, The Box, The Restless Years, Starting Out, Prisoner, A Country Practice, The Flying Doctors, The Power, The Passion and SeaChange...
as Mrs. Horwood - Frederick Parslow as Alvin's Father
- Valerie Blake as Alvin's Mother
- Alan Finney as Spike Dooley
- Elli McClure as Tina
- Noel FerrierNoel FerrierNoel Ferrier AM was an Australian television personality, stage and film actor, raconteur and theatrical producer. He had an extensive theatre career which spanned over fifty years.-Biography:...
as the Judge - Elke NeidhardtElke NeidhardtElke Cordelia Neidhardt AM is a German-Australian actress and opera and theatre director. She has appeared in theatre, television and feature films in Germany, Austria, France and Australia, and has directed operas in Zurich, Amsterdam, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg, Vienna, Cologne and Australia...
Background
Director Tim BurstallTim Burstall
Tim Burstall was an Australian film director, writer and producer, best known for the motion picture Alvin Purple....
had worked extensively in film both in Australia and overseas in the 1960s and in the late Sixties he was closely involved in the foundation of the famous La Mama Theatre in Melbourne, established by his wife Betty Burstall. La Mama was a major focus for the new wave of Australian drama that was emerging at that time, showcasing many new plays, performance pieces and films by people such as Jack Hibberd
Jack Hibberd
Dr Jack Hibberd is an Australian playwright.-Biography:Hibberd studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, where he resided at Newman College and practised as a clinical immunologist in Melbourne from 1964 until 1973...
, Alex Buzo
Alex Buzo
Alex Buzo was an Australian playwright and author who wrote 88 works.-Early life:Buzo was born in Sydney in 1944 to an Albanian-born father and an Australian mother...
, David Williamson
David Williamson
David Keith Williamson AO is one of Australia's best-known playwrights. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.-Biography:...
, Bert Deling and Burstall himself.
Burstall's first feature film, 2000 Weeks was an ambitious contemporary drama about a writer, starring Scots-born actor Mark McManus
Mark McManus
Mark McManus was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of Detective Chief Inspector Jim Taggart in the long-running ITV television series Taggart for eleven years until his death.-Career:...
(of Taggart
Taggart
Taggart is a Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler, who has written many of the episodes, and made by STV Productions for the ITV network...
fame) and Australian actress Jeannie Drynan, which was very notable at the time, being the first all-Australian feature film produced since Charles Chauvel's Jedda in 1954. Although it was reportedly well-received overseas, 2000 Weeks was panned by local critics and it failed disastrously at the box office. The experience affected Burstall strongly and also influenced other directors and producers, including John B. Murray and Phillip Adams
Phillip Adams
Phillip Andrew Hedley Adams, AO is an Australian broadcaster, film producer, writer, social commentator, satirist and left-wing pundit. He currently hosts a radio program, Late Night Live, four nights a week on the ABC, and he also writes a weekly column for the News Limited-owned newspaper, The...
, who observed the hostile reaction to 2000 Weeks and who as a result took their film-making in a more populist direction, as Burstall soon did himself.
This was followed by a low-budget surfing feature Getting Back To Nothing (1970). His second feature, the contemporary comedy Stork
Stork (film)
Stork is a 1971 Australian comedy film directed by Tim Burstall. Stork is based on the play 'The Coming of Stork' by David Williamson. Bruce Spence and Jacki Weaver make their feature film debuts in Stork, being honoured at the 1972 Australian Film Awards, where they shared the acting prize...
(1972) was much more successful. As well as launching the cinema career of actor Bruce Spence
Bruce Spence
Bruce Spence, born September 17, 1945 is an actor, having spent most of his career performing in Australia. Bruce attended Henderson High School in West Auckland....
, who played the title role, it was the first of many successful film adaptations of plays by renowned Australian dramatist David Williamson
David Williamson
David Keith Williamson AO is one of Australia's best-known playwrights. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.-Biography:...
. Stork was adapted from his play The Coming of Stork
The Coming of Stork
The Coming of Stork was the first play written by David Williamson. It was adapted into a feature film in 1971 starring Bruce Spence....
, which had premiered at La Mama.
In 1972 Burstall became a partner in a new film production company, Hexagon Productions. The brief for its first project was to make an "Australian Decameron", and Burstall chose a screenplay by actor and playwright Alan Hopgood
Alan Hopgood
Alan Hopgood is an Australian actor and writer.He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne. Hopgood's first very successful play was And the Big Men Fly in 1963. It was adapted for TV by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1973...
.
Hopgood had enjoyed considerable critical success in the early 1960s with his Aussie rules football satire And The Big Men Fly and he was well-known to TV audiences at the time for his long-running role as the town doctor in the ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
's Bellbird
Bellbird (TV series)
Bellbird was an Australian soap opera set in a small Victorian rural township. The series was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at its Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Victoria. The series was produced between 28 August 1967 and December 1977...
.
In 2008 Catharine Lumby wrote a book about the film in the Australian Screen Classic Series.
Box Office
Alvin Purple took $4,720,000 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $26,721,600 in 2009 dollars.External links
- Alvin Purple by Catharine Lumby
- Alvin Purple on australianscreen online
- Alvin Purple at the National Film and Sound Archive
- Hawker, Philippa; "The direction of Burstall", The AgeThe AgeThe Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, Melbourne, 1 June 2001