''Rough Diamonds'' is a 1994 Australian film directed by

Donald Crombie Donald Charles Crombie (born 5 July 1942) is an Australian film and television director and screenwriter. Born in Brisbane, Crombie was educated at the Anglican Church Grammar School and studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Cro ...

. It was the first lead role in a feature for

Jason Donovan Jason Sean Donovan (born 1 June 1968) is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap ''Neighbours'', playing Scott Robinson, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 mi ...

.Ed. Scott Murray, ''Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995'', Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p134

Premise

Mike Tyrell drives a cattle truck and hits a car picked on the side of the road that belongs to ex-singer Chrissie.

Production

Donald Crombie was inspired to make the film while filming ''The Irishman'' in north Queensland in 1977. He saw a farmer, who owned 80,000 hectares of beef country and on paper was a millionaire, working on a council road gang to make money. He wrote this up as a social drama for

Film Australia Film Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia in 1973. Its predecessors were the Cinema and Photographic Branch (1913–38), the Australian National Film Board (1939–1955, under diffe ...

to star Michelle Fawdon but it was never made. A number of years later Crombie was approached by Damien Parer who wanted to make features in Queensland and was looking for projects; Crombie showed him his treatment and they developed it into a more populist film.Andrew L. Urban, "Rough Diamonds: Romance, music and cattle theft", ''Cinema Papers'', December 1993 p10-15, 58 The farmer who needed money became a singer who had a romance with a girl singer and saves his farm on the country and western circuit.

Craig McLachlan Craig Dougall McLachlan (born 1 September 1965) is an Australian actor, musician, singer and composer. He has been involved in film, television, the music industry and music theatre for over 30 years. He is best known for appearing in the soap ...

was originally going to star but he dropped out to do another job and Jason Donavan was cast instead. The film was financed by Beyond Films and Southern Star Entertainment with finance from the

Film Finance Corporation The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) was the government agency responsible for funding commercial productions of Australian film, documentary, and television from 1988 to 2008. Unlike other publicly funded organisations responsible for f ...

and Film Queensland. It was mostly shot on location in Boonah Shire, Queensland.

Release

The film contained several songs and was sold by the distributors as a musical. It was bought by Rank in England, which led to it being re-cut without Crombie's input. The director later claimed:

When they anksaw it, they went, "It's not a musical. It's actually a very real social realist drama with some songs." So what they did then, they cut out all the bit that mattered to me, which was the whole story about this bloke losing a property. So the whole reason for the film, the reason I got involved in it and evolved the whole thing, was taken away by the distributor. The FFC in their wisdom backed the distributors and said, "If they think it's got to be like this, it's got to be like this." So I said "Fine," and we parted company. I've never seen the film and I never will, I don't think. It's terrible, I believe, because it doesn't have any heart; there's nothing there. It's never been released, thank God. But I wanted to take my name off it and I was talked out of it, and I now regret that because I realise I should have taken my name off it."Interview with Donald Crombie", ''Signet'', 18 December 1998
Retrieved 16 November 2012

References

External links

* {{Donald Crombie 1994 films Australian drama films 1994 drama films Films directed by Donald Crombie 1990s English-language films