The Naked Country

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The Naked Country
Directed by Tim Burstall
Screenplay byTim Burstall
Ross Dimsey
Based onnovel by Morris West
Produced by Ross Dimsey
Starring John Stanton
Rebecca Gilling
Ivar Kants
CinematographyDavid Eggby
Edited byTony Paterson
Music by Bruce Smeaton
Distributed byDumbarton Films
Release date
  • 1985 (1985)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetAU$2.75 million [1]

The Naked Country is a 1985 Australian film. It was based on the 1957 novel by Morris West.

Contents

Cast

Original novel

The Naked Country
Author Morris West as "Michael East"
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Genreadventure
PublisherHeinemann
Publication date
1960
Media typePrint
Pages202

The film was based on a novel by Australian author Morris West, writing under the name "Michael East". It was published in 1960, by which time West had established himself with an international best seller, The Devil's Advocate. [2]

The Sydney Morning Herald said it was a "skilfully written although not particularly impressive tale of adventure and romance in the outback tradition." [3]

Other adaptations

The novel formed the basis for "The Hunters" an episode of the TV series Whiplash (1960–61). [4]

In 1965, screenwriter James Poe was in Sydney to research a film he was going to make for MGM and producer George Englund called The Adventures of Captain Cook. Poe said he hoped to follow this with an adaptation of The Naked Country. However the Captain Cook project was not made and a film of The Naked Country did not result until the 1980s. [5]

Production

In 1982 Ross Dimsey was finishing his contract as head of the Victoria Film Corporation and was looking for a project to do. Robert Ward of Filmways introduced him to the novel. Along with Mark Josem of Filmways and solicitor Bill Marshall they formed a company called Intronide to buy the rights to The Naked Country, which had been optioned several times but not made. [6] [7]

Dimsey did a treatment which focused on the affair between the police officer and the station owner's wife. [8] He then approached Tim Burstall, with whom he had worked several times, to direct. Burstall agreed on the proviso that he helped write the script. [6] Tim Burstall:

I was a hired gun there; I didn't choose the material. He [Morris West] wrote it in 1945 and it really was a potboiler. It had the rudiments, the beginnings of land rights issues, but I took this and converted it absolutely into a land rights thing. To me the problem was I thought the business of Stanton versus the aborigines was okay. But there were indigestible lumps in the script like the adultery. And the Ivar Kants character was too melodramatic. I had to make him a mercenary from South Africa. [9]

The story was originally set in the Kimberley region but filming there would have been logistically impossible, so it was set in Queensland. [8]

Ten percent of the budget was provided by the Queensland Film Corporation. The film's complete budget of $2.75 million was over subscribed by more than $1 million at the end of the 1983-84 financial year and the movie had a 30% combined foreign and Australian pre sale when production started. [6] The movie was shot in and around Charters Towers. [1] Dimsey later estimated that buying the rights to first day of filming took three months. [8]

Reception

The film performed poorly at the Australian box office but did better overseas, particularly in France and Germany, and Ross Dimsey says it got most of its money back. Dimsey says he regrets pulling back on the romantic plot and he felt the movie was a little old fashioned. He felt it was made under circumstances that were too rushed and the script had not been developed. [8]

Home media

Money Movers was released for the first time on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in December 2015.

TitleFormatEpisodesDiscs/TapesRegion 4 (Australia)Special FeaturesDistributors
The Naked CountryDVDFilm131 December 2015Exclusive Interview with Actress Rebecca Gilling

Audio Interview With Writer/Producer Ross Dimsey

Stills Gallery

Umbrella Entertainment

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References

  1. 1 2 David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p72-73
  2. ↑ The Naked Country at AustLit
  3. ↑ "Reviews in Brief". The Sydney Morning Herald. 6 August 1960. p. 17.
  4. ↑ "Whiplash". Classic TV Archive.
  5. ↑ O'Neil, Josephine (12 September 1965). "Wanted: Another Face for Captain Cook". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 47.
  6. 1 2 3 Ewan Burnett, "Burstall and Dimsey Go West", Cinema Papers, May 1985 p48-49
  7. ↑ "Who's Doing What". Filmnews . New South Wales, Australia. 1 March 1983. p. 18. Retrieved 8 April 2020– via Trove.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Audio interview with Ross Dimsey, Naked Country DVD Special Features, Umbrella Entertainment, 2005
  9. ↑ Interview with Tim Burstall, 30 March 1998 Archived 15 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine accessed 14 October 2012
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