The Night the Prowler

Last updated

The Night the Prowler
Penguin 1978 PatrickWhite ScreenplayandShortStory.jpg
Cover of screenplay
Directed by Jim Sharman
Written by Patrick White
Produced by Anthony Buckley
Starring Ruth Cracknell
John Frawley
Kerry Walker
CinematographyDavid Sanderson
Edited bySara Bennett
Music by Cameron Allan
Production
companies
Distributed by International Harmony (US)
Release dates
  • 2 June 1978 (1978-06-02)(Sydney Film Festival)
  • 15 June 1979 (1979-06-15)(Australia)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetAU$417,000 [1]

The Night the Prowler (also known as Patrick White's The Night the Prowler) is a 1978 Australian film written by Patrick White, produced by Anthony Buckley and directed by Jim Sharman. [2] Ruth Cracknell was nominated in 1979 for an AFI Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role for her part. [3]

Contents

Cast

Production

Sharman had worked successfully with White directing the latter's play The Season at Sarsaparilla . White suggested that his book The Night the Prowler might make a film; Sharman agreed and White wrote a screenplay. [4]

The film was shot in November and December 1977. [5]

Release

The film was selected to open the 1978 Sydney Film Festival and was harshly received. [1]

Reception

Paul Byrnes of Australian Screen Online wrote the following in his review:

The film is a savage satire on the neuroses of the privileged of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, where White lived, and the director Jim Sharman grew up. Much of the satire verges on invective, and the film was criticised for being ponderous, pretentious and condescending. Parts of it are like that—especially some of the dialogue—but the film also has some moments where everything works. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick White</span> Australian writer (1912–1990)

Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, conformist society. Influenced by the modernism of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, he developed a complex literary style and a body of work which challenged the dominant realist prose tradition of his home country, was satirical of Australian society, and sharply divided local critics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, the only Australian to have been awarded the literary prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Cracknell</span> Australian actress (1925–2002)

Ruth Winifred Cracknell AM was an Australian character and comic actress, comedienne and author, her career encompassing all genres including radio, theatre, television and film. She appeared in many dramatic as well as comedy roles throughout a career spanning some 56 years. In theatre she was well known for her Shakespeare roles.

<i>Blue Fin</i> 1978 film

Blue Fin is a 1978 Australian family film directed by Carl Schultz and starring Hardy Krüger, Greg Rowe and Elspeth Ballantyne. It is based on a 1969 Australian novel written by Colin Thiele.

The Dismissal is an Australian television miniseries, first screened in 1983, that dramatised the events of the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.

Ken Quinnell is an Australia screenwriter and film director.

Michael Thornhill was a film producer, screenwriter, and director.

James David Sharman is an Australian director and writer for film and stage with more than 70 productions to his credit. He is renowned in Australia for his work as a theatre director since the 1960s, and is best known internationally as the director of the 1973 theatrical hit The Rocky Horror Show, its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and the film's follow-up, Shock Treatment (1981).

<i>Stone</i> (1974 film) 1974 Australian outlaw biker film

Stone is a 1974 Australian outlaw biker film written, directed and produced by Sandy Harbutt. It is a low budget film by company Hedon Productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bea Miles</span> Australian bohemian rebel

Beatrice Miles was an Australian eccentric and bohemian rebel. Described as Sydney's "iconic eccentric", she was known for her contentious relationships with the city's taxi drivers and for her ability to quote any passage from Shakespeare for money.

Voss is an opera by Australian composer Richard Meale with libretto by David Malouf. It is an adaptation of Patrick White's novel of the same name. The opera was commissioned by The Australian Opera, and premiered at the Adelaide Festival in 1986. It was reprised in Adelaide in 2022, in a co-production by State Opera South Australia and Victorian Opera.

Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens is a 1972 Australian film directed by Jim Sharman and starring Jane Harders and Helmut Bakaitis. It is the first feature-length film from Sharman, who subsequently directed The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

<i>The Last of the Knucklemen</i> 1979 Australian film

The Last of the Knucklemen is a 1979 Australian film directed by Tim Burstall.

<i>Pure Shit</i> 1975 Australian film

Pure Shit is a 1975 Australian drama film directed by Bert Deling.

Sons of Matthew is a 1949 Australian film directed and produced and co-written by Charles Chauvel. The film was shot in 1947 on location in Queensland, Australia, and the studio sequences in Sydney. Sons of Matthew took 18 months to complete, but it was a great success with Australian audiences when it finally opened in December 1949.

<i>Money Movers</i> 1978 Australian film

Money Movers is a 1978 Australian crime action drama film written and directed by Bruce Beresford. The film was based on the 1972 novel The Money Movers by Devon Minchin, founder of Metropolitan Security Services. The story deals loosely with two real-life events, the 1970 Sydney Armoured Car Robbery where A$500,000 was stolen from a Mayne Nickless armoured van, and a 1970 incident when A$280,000 was stolen from Metropolitan Security Services' offices by bandits impersonating policemen.

<i>The Singer and the Dancer</i> 1976 Australian film

The Singer and the Dancer is a 1977 film directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Ruth Cracknell and Elizabeth Crosby.

Luciana Maria Arrighi is a Brazilian-born, Australian-Italian production designer. In 1993, she won an Oscar for Best Art Direction for the film Howards End (1992), becoming the first Brazilian-born person to win an Oscar. She also earned two more Oscar nominations in the same category for The Remains of the Day (1993) in 1994, and Anna and the King (1999) in 2000. In 2003, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Art Direction for the television film The Gathering Storm (2002).

Big Toys is a 1977 Australian play by Patrick White. It was his first play in 14 years.

Cameron Beck Allan was an Australian-born American-based composer, record producer, filmmaker and former label owner. In September 1978 he co-founded the record label Regular Records with fellow filmmaker Martin Fabinyi. Their first signing was the new wave group Mental As Anything, and their second was the pub rock band Flowers. Allan produced both groups' early work. His TV and film music compositions include Stir (1980), The Umbrella WomanKojak: Ariana (1989), and Kojak: Flowers for Matty (1990). In 1986 he relocated to the United States and in July 1992 he married Margaret Wertheim, a science writer. The couple had separated by 2007. Cameron Allan died of liver failure, after a transplant, aged 57.

Kerry Ann Walker is an Australian actress. She has had a lengthy career on both stage and screen. She was nominated for the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role three times, in 1985 for Bliss, 1986 for Twelfth Night and in 1995 for The Piano.

References

  1. 1 2 Stratton, David. The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival, Angus & Robertson, 1980 p167-169
  2. The Angus & Robertson Concise Australian Encyclopedaedia (2nd ed. 1986). North Ryde, Sydney, Australia: Angus & Robertson. 1983. p. 505. ISBN   0-207-15305-1.
  3. IMDb awards
  4. Anderson, Robyn & Adler, Sue. "Jim Sharman", Cinema Papers, March–April 1979 p. 270
  5. Dzenis, Anna. "Patrick White's the Night the Prowler", Australian Film 1978-1992, Oxford Uni Press 1993 p. 46
  6. Byrnes, Paul. The Night the Prowler . Australian Screen Online