The Naked Bunyip

(1970)

In 1970, censorship in all of the arts was extreme in Australia, and their domestic film industry was all but dead. John B. Murray decided to have a go at proving that there was a market for Australian film, and came up with the idea of a sex documentary, calculated to have wide prurient interest, and to also show the censorship situation for what it was. He got Graeme Blundell to star as a virginal market researcher assigned to the sex angle on a major study of Australian mores. Blundell interviewed hookers, massage workers, photography models, figure study models, transexuals from Les Girls, homosexuals (male and female), and anyone else who had something to say about nudity, sex, procreation, abortion, fashion trends, etc.

The censors responded as predicted, and demanded several cuts. Rather than actually remove the footage, Murray left it in, but inserted a picture of a bunyip (a mythical aboriginal demon) over the objectionable videos, and the sound of a horn over the censored audio segments. The censor was furious, but Murray had made a strong point about censorship. In a few short years Australia became one of the more liberal countries. The Naked Bunyip is thus a seminal work of the modern Australian film industry.

By the way, it was a huge financial success.

The subject matter now is hardly shocking, and the nude content is in the ho hum arena, so the film is of interest primarily to those interested in learning about the historical context.  The DVD therefore includes the censored footage and a 28 minute featurette about how the film came to be. The complete package is fascinating for those inclined to be interested in the subject matter. For further reading, there are also many on-line articles about this film, including this good one.

Available from RLDVDs.com on a region-free PAL.

Mishka Buhler, as one of the figure models, does full frontal and rear. Carlotta, from Les Girls, shows breasts. Several other women show body parts, but could not be identified.

 

 

Mishka Buhler

Carlotta

Unidentified

Good Luck Chuck

A funny premise doesn't always lead to a funny comedy, the main problem with this 2007 effort. In addition, two competing themes actually got in the way of one another, especially when they dropped one in the middle of the movie.

When Charlie was 10, he played spin-the-bottle at a party, and when he refused to kiss a scary goth girl, she placed a curse on him that said that every woman he sleeps with would marry the next man she meets, while he will never find true love.

Grown up and a successful dentist, Charlie has a healthy love life, but nothing ever turns serious, although his exes always seem to get married.

At a wedding for his most recent ex, Charlie meets Cam (Jessica Alba), a beautiful penguin trainer who has only one slight flaw: she's extremely accident-prone. This in itself was a cute bit, but they dropped it about halfway through the movie, kind of like they decided "let's not do this bit anymore". That made the movie very uneven.

Aside from Cam's clumsiness, the bulk of the movie was devoted to Charlie's "problem", and the unrated version is just loaded with nudity. Charlie's growing love for Cam and his quest to avoid the problem of her falling in love with the next guy was amusing, but the movie really failed to deliver a solid comedy. The best thing about it was the nudity, and that's a sad comment on the overall product. Close, but no cigar.

Annie Wood	Carrie Fleming	Chelan Simmons	Jessica Alba
Michelle Andrew	Simone Bailly	Susan McClellan	Kari-Anne Wood
Viviana Dal Cengio	Yasmine Vox	Tava Smiley	Victoria Bidewell