| Street of Dreams | |
|---|---|
 Luna Park Sydney, filming location, circa 1980s. | |
| Directed by | Martin Sharp |
| Produced by | Martin Sharp, Deanne Judson, Jo Sharp |
| Starring | Tiny Tim |
| Edited by | Paul Healy, Marilyn Karet |
Running time | 107 minutes (Brighton Cut) |
| Countries | Australia United States |
| Language | English |
Street of Dreams is an unfinished documentary film about the musician Tiny Tim and the 1979 Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney, directed and produced by Australian artist Martin Sharp. [1]
The film firstly features Tiny Tim, showcasing footage of his record-setting, two-hour-and-seventeen-minute professional singing marathon at Luna Park Sydney in January 1979. [2] It tells Tiny's life story, framed around the marathon performance footage, while highlighting his many eccentricities, religious convictions and sexual hangups as captured by Sharp's camera crews in both Australia and the United States.
The film's other major theme is the 1979 Ghost Train fire at Luna Park, which occurred five months after Tiny's visit. Sharp became convinced the two events were somehow linked, and so the film covers the perceived synchronicities and theological underpinnings of the fire while also telling the story of Luna Park in general. As filming went on, Sharp also began to gather evidence, also presented in the film, that the fire was not an accident as had been originally reported but was in fact deliberately lit by associates of Abe Saffron.
Street of Dreams explores all of the above themes - Tiny, the marathon performance, his life in general, the Ghost Train fire, potential causes of the fire and the history of Luna Park in general - in an interconnected, theological way, with heavy Christian motifs and joined by a narrative in which Tiny makes his way through the park's mirror maze.
Sharp obsessively worked on Street of Dreams after 1979. By 1985, an entire room of his Wirian residence was dedicated to the project, which Sharp had custom painted in shades of blue, yellow and pink. [3]
In 1988, a rough version entitled "The Brighton Cut" was compiled at Tiny's insistence so that the film could be shown at the Brighton Festival, with Tiny commenting that Sharp had "maybe made a cult movie which at the very least will survive as a museum piece". [4] This version was played at various other film festivals in the late 1980s and early 1990s and occasionally aired on TV in both Australia and the United States [5] [6] though Sharp still considered it a work in progress. [7] [8]
In 1989, Sharp told the Sydney Morning Herald: "I think I've got the form there now. It's just a matter of making what's between the beginning and the end flow a bit better". In the same joint interview, Tiny also suggested that the film should centre more on Luna Park and that "more concentration should be held on the nude scenes... (they) should last longer and be heavier". [9] In 1990, Sharp again told the Herald: "People have often said it's two separate films, but I think the challenge is to make it one film. When it's ready, it will let me know. If the worst comes to worst, it will stand as it is now." [10]
Sharp continued to work on the film up until his death in 2013 and never finished it. [11] As of 2024 his estate continue to consider it an incomplete work and have never released it officially, although poor-quality bootleg copies of the Brighton Cut from a VHS transfer circulate online.
In 2014, footage of Tiny's complete Luna Park marathon performance shot for Street of Dreams was released on streaming services as The Non-Stop Luna Park Marathon by Planet Blue Pictures. [12] As of 2023, it can be viewed for free on Vimeo. [13]
Herbert Butros Khaury, also known as Herbert Buckingham Khaury, and known professionally as Tiny Tim, was an American musician and musical archivist. He is known for his 1968 hit recording of the song "Tiptoe Through the Tulips", and was renowned for his wide vocal range in particular his far reaching falsetto.
Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American musician. He began his career based in folk rock, but subsequently experimented with genres such as psychedelia, jazz, the avant-garde, and funk paired with his unique five-octave vocal range. His commercial peak came with the 1969 album Happy Sad, reaching No. 81 on the charts, while his experimental 1970 album Starsailor went on to become a cult classic. The latter contained his best known song, "Song to the Siren." Buckley died at the age of 28 from a heroin and morphine overdose, leaving behind one biological son, Jeff, and one adopted son, Taylor.
Luna Park Sydney is a heritage-listed amusement park located at 1 Olympic Drive, Milsons Point, New South Wales, Australia, on the northern shore of Sydney Harbour. The amusement park is owned by the Luna Park Reserve Trust, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It is one of Sydney's most famous landmarks and has had a significant impact on culture through the years, including being featured as a filming location for several movies and television shows.
Martin Ritchie Sharp was an Australian artist, cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker.
Audio Lessonover? is the fourth studio album by the Christian rock band Delirious?, released in August 2001. It gathered considerably less critical acclaim than previous Delirious? albums, both musically and in its lack of overtly Christian lyrics. The sole single released from the album, Waiting for the Summer, reached number 26 in the UK Singles Charts; "Take Me Away", originally planned to be the second single, was released to MP3.com as a free download.
Sophie Luise Elisabeth Muller is a British music video director who has directed over 300 music videos. She won a Grammy Award for Annie Lennox's 1992 Diva video album, and an MTV Video Music Award for Lennox's song "Why" from the same album. In 1993, she received a BRIT Award for "Stay" by Shakespears Sister. She won another MTV Award in 1997 for "Don't Speak" by No Doubt. Muller is a longtime collaborator of Sade, Annie Lennox, Gwen Stefani, Kylie Minogue, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Garbage and Shakespears Sister.
Dirty Deeds is a 2002 film shot in Australia. It was directed by noted fringe director David Caesar and stars Bryan Brown, Toni Collette, Sam Neill, Sam Worthington, John Goodman and Andrew Sommerich and produced by Nine Films and Television, the film and television production arm of the Nine Network, owned by PBL Media, now Nine Entertainment Co.
Ruth Wilkinson is a fictional character from the Australian soap opera Neighbours, played by Ailsa Piper. She made her first appearance during the episode broadcast on 3 October 1996. Ruth was introduced as Helen Daniels' physiotherapist. She was a divorced single mother, who later established a relationship with Philip Martin, which attracted some opposition from their children. The relationship was later tested by the introduction of Ruth's long lost son, Ben Atkins and his father Geoff Burke. Philip and Ruth marry in 1998, amid a breast cancer scare for Ruth. The Martin family were written out of Neighbours and they departed together on 20 October 1999. Piper reprised her role for the show's 20th anniversary episode, which aired on 27 July 2005.
Belvoir is an Australian theatre company based at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia, originally known as Company B. Its artistic director is Eamon Flack. The theatre comprises two performing spaces: the Upstairs Theatre and the smaller Downstairs Theatre.
Message to Love is a feature documentary film of the Isle of Wight Festival 1970. Directed and produced by Murray Lerner, the film includes performances by popular rock acts, such as Jimi Hendrix, the Who, and the Doors, as well as folk and jazz artists, such as Joni Mitchell and Miles Davis. The title of the film is taken from a song by Hendrix.
Richard Barone is an American rock musician who first gained attention as frontman for the Bongos. He works as a songwriter, arranger, author, director, and record producer, releases albums as a solo artist, tours, and has created concert events at Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl, SXSW, and New York's Central Park. He teaches the course “Music + Revolution” at The New School's School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, has served on the Board of Governors of The Recording Academy (GRAMMYs), serves on the Advisory Board of Anthology Film Archives, and hosts the "Folk Radio" show on WBAI New York.
BBC Film is the feature film-making arm of the BBC. It was founded on 18 June 1990, and has produced or co-produced some of the most successful British films of recent years, including Truly, Madly, Deeply, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa, Quartet, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Saving Mr. Banks, My Week with Marilyn, Eastern Promises, Match Point, Jane Eyre, In the Loop, An Education, StreetDance 3D, Fish Tank, The History Boys, Nativity!, Iris, Notes on a Scandal, Philomena, Stan & Ollie, Man Up, Billy Elliot and Brooklyn.
The Sydney Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney in Milsons Point, New South Wales, Australia killed seven people on 9 June 1979. Inadequate fire-fighting measures and low staffing caused the fire to completely destroy the amusement park's ghost train.
Troye Sivan Mellet is an Australian singer-songwriter and actor. After gaining popularity as a singer on YouTube and in Australian talent competitions, Sivan signed with EMI Australia in 2013 and released his third EP, TRXYE (2014), which peaked at number five on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single, "Happy Little Pill", reached the top 10 on Australian music charts. In 2015, he released his fourth extended play, Wild, followed by his debut studio album, Blue Neighbourhood. The album's lead single, "Youth", became Sivan's first single to enter the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 23.
Palace Cinemas is an Australian cinema chain that specialises in arthouse and international films.
Sound Relief was a multi-venue rock music concert held on 14 March 2009, which was announced by the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby on 24 February 2009. The event was organised by Michael Gudinski, Michael Chugg, Amanda Pelman, Joe Segreto & Tom Lang of IMC/Homebake Festival and Mark Pope to raise funds for those affected by the February 2009 Victorian bushfires.
DNA Songs is a songwriting and production company founded by Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci in Australia in 2004. They have worked with a variety of international and local artists including Ricky Martin, Geri Halliwell, The Veronicas, Guy Sebastian, Delta Goodrem, The Saturdays, Jessica Mauboy, Timomatic, Shannon Noll and many others. They have had seven No.1 singles in Australia with The Veronicas' "You Ruin Me" and "In My Blood", as well as Delta Goodrem's single "Wings", Reece Mastin's "Good Night" and "Shout It Out", Samantha Jade's "What You've Done to Me" and Dami Im's "Alive".