''The Great Macarthy'' is a 1975 comedy about
Australian rules football
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...
. It was an adaptation of the 1970 novel ''
A Salute to the Great McCarthy'' by
Barry Oakley
Barry Kingham Oakley (born 24 February 1931)''Who's Who in Australia'' (2010) is an Australian writer.Luke Slattery"10 questions: Barry Oakley, author, 81"''The Australian'', 15 December 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2016.- Graeme Blundell"Wittily i ...
. It stars
John Jarratt
John Jarratt is an Australian television film actor, producer and director and TV presenter who rose to fame through his work in the Australian New Wave. He has appeared in a number of film roles including '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975), ' ...
as the title character (in his film debut) as a local footballer playing for Kyneton, who is signed up (or more appropriately, kidnapped) by the South Melbourne Football Club (now
Sydney Swans
The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a reser ...
). It also stars
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film prod ...
and
Judy Morris
Judith Ann Morris (born 17 February 1947) is an Australian character actress, as well as a film director and screenwriter, well known for the variety of roles she played in 58 different television shows and films, starting her career as a child ...
. It was released at a time of resurgence in Australian cinema but was not very successful despite its high-profile cast.
Plot
Macarthy is a country football player who is kidnapped by the South Melbourne Football Club and made a star player in the city. The Club Chairman, Colonel Ball-Miller, gives Macarthy a job in one of his companies and makes him attend night school. He is seduced by his English teacher, Miss Russell, and has an affair with Ball-Miller's daughter, Andrea.
Macarthy and Andrea get married but then divorce. Macarthy goes on strike to claim the family fortune.
Cast
*
John Jarratt
John Jarratt is an Australian television film actor, producer and director and TV presenter who rose to fame through his work in the Australian New Wave. He has appeared in a number of film roles including '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' (1975), ' ...
as MacArthy
*
Judy Morris
Judith Ann Morris (born 17 February 1947) is an Australian character actress, as well as a film director and screenwriter, well known for the variety of roles she played in 58 different television shows and films, starting her career as a child ...
as Miss Russell
*
Kate Fitzpatrick
Kerry Kathleen Fitzpatrick (born 1 October 1947) known as Kate Fitzpatrick, is an Australian television, film, and theatre actress.
Early years
Kate grew up in the Adelaide suburb of Dover Gardens, and it was in Adelaide that her love for cl ...
as Andrea
*Sandy Macgregor as Vera
*
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film prod ...
as Colonel Ball-Miller
*John Frawley as Webster
*Colin Croft as Tranter
*
Chris Haywood
Chris Haywood (born ) is an English-born Australian actor, writer and producer, with close to 500 screen performances to his name. Haywood has also worked as a casting director, art director, sound recordist, camera operator, gaffer, grip, l ...
as Warburton
*Colin Drake as Ackerman
*Ron Frazer as Twentyman
*
Max Gillies
Maxwell Irvine Gillies AM (born 16 November 1941) is an Australian actor and a founding member of the 1970s experimental theatre company, the Australian Performing Group.
Early life and education
Gillies studied art teaching at Frankston Tea ...
as Stan
*Dennis Miller as MacGuinness
*
Lou Richards
Lewis Thomas Charles "Lou" Richards, (15 March 1923 – 8 May 2017) was an Australian rules footballer who played 250 games for the Collingwood Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) between 1941 and 1955. He captained the team ...
as Lou Arnold
*
Jack Dyer
John Raymond Dyer Sr. OAM (15 November 1913 – 23 August 2003), nicknamed Captain Blood, was an Australian rules footballer who played for the Richmond Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) between 1931 and 1949. One of the ga ...
as Jack Diehard
*Jim Bowles as Les
*
Bruce Spence
Bruce Spence (born 17 September 1945) is a New Zealand–Australian actor. Spence has amassed over 100 film and television credits and has also acted in theatre.
Biography
Spence won an AFI Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1971 comedy ...
as Bill Dean
*
Peter Cummins
Peter Cummins (born 2 June 1931 in Melbourne) is an Australian retired character actor of stage and screen and chorister who was especially prominent in the 1970s and appeared in some of the most famous Australian films of the period.
He was pa ...
as Rerk
Production
David Baker was an emerging director who was interested in Barry Oakley's novel. Richard Brennan optioned it for him and they agreed to make the film together, hiring playwright John Romeril to do the adaptation. According to Brennan, Romeril's second draft was "fantastic" but later drafts included too much sex and slapstick to make it more like other successful Australian films at the time such as ''
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
''The Adventures of Barry McKenzie'' is a 1972 Australian comedy film directed by Bruce Beresford and starring Barry Crocker, telling the story of an Australian 'yobbo' on his travels to the United Kingdom. Barry McKenzie was originally a chara ...
'' and ''
Alvin Purple
''Alvin Purple'' is a 1973 Australian sex comedy film starring Graeme Blundell in the title role; the screenplay was written by Alan Hopgood and directed by Tim Burstall, through his production company Hexagon Productions and Village Roadshow ...
''.
[David Stratton, ''The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival'', Angus & Robertson, 1980 p223-224]
Philip Adams later claimed he always knew the film would struggle "because of its idiosyncratic and complex nature".
[Gordon Glenn & Scott Murray, "Phil Adams: Producer", ''Cinema Papers'', March–April 1976 p343]
The film was shot in mid 1974. Half the budget was provided by the
Australian Film Development Corporation
The Australian Film Development Corporation was an organisation created and funded by the Australian Government in the 1970s, intended to allow filmmakers in the Australian film industry to create movies for everyone to see. In 1975 it was repla ...
.
Release
The film performed poorly critically and at the box office.
References
External links
*
''The Great Macarthy'' at the National Film and Sound Archive''The Great Macarthy''at Oz Movies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Great Macarthy, The
1975 films
1970s sports comedy films
Films based on Australian novels
Australian rules football films
Australian sports comedy films
Films scored by Bruce Smeaton
Australian slapstick films
1975 comedy films
1970s English-language films
Films directed by David Baker