Alvin Purple is a 1973 Australian comedy film starring Graeme Blundell, written by Alan Hopgood and directed by Tim Burstall.
It received mostly negative reviews from local film critics. Although this is a big hit with an Australian audience. Alvin Purple became Australia's most commercially successful film released at the time, breaking box office records set by the Anglo-Australian comedy feature pioneer Michael Powell They are Strange Mob ( 1966).
The theme scores and titles were composed by renowned Australian singer-songwriter Brian Cadd.
The 1974 film sequel Alvin Rides Again softened the sex scene and nudity, adding more camp comedy.
This was followed by the 1976 Australian Broadcasting Commission television sitcom titled Alvin Purple. Blundell imitated the title role in both, as well as in the 1984 film Melvin, Son of Alvin .
Video Alvin Purple
Story
This movie is a sex joke that follows the misfortune of a young Melbourne man, Alvin Purple, who is considered an unbearable woman. Working in door-to-door sales, Alvin (unsuccessfully) tries against the legions of women who want him.
Alvin was so tired that he sought the help of a psychiatrist to solve his problem. The psychiatrist is of course a woman. Alvin finally fell in love with a girl who did not throw herself at him. He became a nun, and Alvin eventually became a gardener in the monastery park.
Maps Alvin Purple
Cast
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Director Tim Burstall has worked extensively in films both in Australia and abroad in the 1960s and in the late 1960s he was closely involved in the foundation of Melbourne's famous La Mama Theater, founded by his wife Betty Burstall. La Mama was the main focus for the new wave of Australian dramas that appeared at the time, featuring many new dramas, pieces of performances and movies by people like Jack Hibberd, Alex Buzo, David Williamson, Bert Deling, and Burstall himself.
Burext's first movie, 2000 Weeks is an ambitious contemporary drama about a writer, starring Scottish-born actor Mark McManus (of Taggart
This is followed by the low-cost surfing feature Getting Back to Nothing (1970). Both features, the contemporary comedy Stork (1972) are 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 the drama by renowned Australian playwright David Williamson. Stork is adapted from her game The Coming of Stork , which has aired in La Mama.
Development
In 1972 Burstall became a partner in a new film production company, Hexagon Productions. Their first project was meant to be Sittin based on a script from David Williamson but Williamson was still teaching at the time and also inundated with other work and could not finish it in time (it ended up being Petersen > (1974)). Burstall then decided to create an Australian version of Decameron , which was popular in theaters at the time, and would allow Hexagon to take advantage of the new "R" certificate, which had been introduced to Australia in 1971. Another influence was Bedroom Mazurka .
Burstall is considered to be 26 stories from authors such as Bob Ellis, Williamson, Barry Oakley and Frank Hardy before settling on Alan Hopgood's Alvin Purple.
Hopgood had enjoyed critical successes in the early 1960s with his rule football satire, And Big Men Fly and he was well known on TV at the time for his long-standing role as a city doctor. on ABC Bellbird . He originally wrote Alvin Purple for the British company Tigon Films.
Hopgood's story was originally half-comic, half serious, and Burstall originally envisioned it as a 20-minute section of a multi-story story. But he then decided to make the story into a comic and expand it to long. Burstall said he rewrote many of Hopgood's manuscripts, added a lot of chases and order of water beds, and turned the figure of McBurney into a sex maniac. The original script emphasizes more on the relationship between Alvin and his virgin girlfriend, but this is cut in the last movie.
The budget is fully provided by Hexagon - half of the Roadshow, half of Burstall, Bilcock and Copping - apart from short-term loans from the Australian Film Development Corporation, paid before the film's release. Burstall threw Graeme Blundell in the lead:
I remember Bourkie [Executive Roadshow Graham Burke] saying, 'You have to get someone like Jack Thompson.' I said, 'Not at all. You have to remove someone who is not, on the surface, looks like a stud or even very attractive '. I really think that Alvin is not, that the comic element is connected with having Woody Allen or Dustin Hoffman's figure that is not very obviously sexually attractive, and girls rushing to him. It becomes much more funny than if he were a stud figure.
Blundell paid $ 500 a week for the role.
Production
The film was taken for five and a half weeks in March and April 1973.
Reception
The film was a huge success and took $ 4,720,000 at the box office in Australia, which equates to $ 36,721,600 in 2009 dollars. This is Australia's 7th best-selling film of all time when adjusted for inflation.
In 1979 Burstall said the film had returned $ 2.4 million to exhibitors, $ 1.6 million to the distributor, who took $ 500,000, leaving Hexagon for $ 1.1 million. The film was sold to television for $ 40,000 in 1977.
In 2008 Catharine Lumby wrote a book about the film in the Australian Screen Classic Series.
The film was released in the US as a The Sex Therapist .
Inside Alvin Purple
It was accompanied on release by a 48 minute promotional documentary Inside Alvin Purple directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. The film was pulled from screening due to sensor concerns but was passed after several deductions were made.
Home media
Alvin Purple was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in April 2011. This DVD is compatible with region codes 2 and 4 and includes special features like theater trailer, image gallery, Alvin In Purple documentary and interviews with cast, Tim Burstall, Alan Finney, Robin Copping, Graeme Blundell, Jacki Weaver, and Ellie MacLure.
References
External links
- Alvin Purple in IMDb
- Alvin Purple by Catharine Lumby
- Alvin Purple on the Australian Online Screen
- Alvin Purple in National Movies and Sound Archives
- Alvin Purple in Oz Movies
- Hawker, Philippa; "Direction Burstall", The Age , Melbourne, June 1, 2001
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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