Johnny's comments:

The Australian update - featuring a couple of 80s movies starring Deborra-Lee Furness.

I'm just old enough to remember how big of a star she was before Hugh Jackman came along.

Cool Change is a 1985 drama where a battle breaks out about a new national park being listed. Caught in the middle are Steve (Jon Blake), a local ranger who just wants to lounge around all day and avoid working for his rancher father. Joanna (Lisa Armytage) is a small-time local rancher who uses the area destined to be a national park and she's an old flame of Steve's, who's still very interested. Meanwhile in the city, head of national parks James (David Bradshaw) is desperate to get the deal done while his assistant Lee (Deborra-Lee Furness) is unsure about the whole thing. Steve and Joanna rekindle the flame but Joanna is struggling on her own and after receiving a fine from the parks authority, she may even lose the farm. Steve reluctantly tries to get his father involved but he isn't interested but his mother is just as stubborn as Steve and gets involved. Steve will do anything to keep things as is and invites Lee up to see what is happening for herself. James decides to take matters into his own hands and decides Joanne needs to be shut down and will use the everything in his disposal to do so. But not if Steve can help it.

Soppy melodrama which takes a reasonable issue and turns it into a silly love story with a real moustache twirling bad guy. It is sold as a love triangle but Steve only has eyes for Joanna and doesn't even look twice at Lee even when she goes for a skinnydip. Steve's such a great guy that he'll do anything for Joanna including becoming so anarchic that he doesn't seem to care about anything but Joanna which becomes mighty strange when the big (and completely predictable) twist is unveiled about Joanna's kid. Also, it's directed by the other George Miller of The Man From Snowy River fame and a whole chunk of this movie is basically a rehash of that better movie. Cool Change feels like a low rent knock-off to cash in on the success of that movie so it's even stranger that they have the same director. But the biggest disappointment is watching Jon 'Sonny' Blake just effortlessly be a great leading man considering the tragedy that is about to befall him.

Jenny Kissed Me is a 1985 domestic drama where Lindsay (Ivar Kants) lives in the country with Carol (Deborra-Lee Furness) and her daughter Jenny (Tamsin West), who adores her stepfather and he adores her back. Carol is a little indifferent to both Jenny and living in the country and she's struggling to find a job. Jenny complains of a stomach ache and it barely registers with Carol but at night Jenny starts screaming about it and Lindsay takes her to the hospital while Carol stays behind. Turns out she has appendicitis and is fine but things grow tense between Lindsay and Carol and then get worse when Lindsay sells a gun so he can buy a much-wanted bike for Jenny. On a stormy night when Lindsay is away from home, Carol, who is very afraid of storms, goes to get help from next door neighbour Mal (Steven Grives), who seduces her while Lindsay rushes home to be with them. When he arrives, Lindsay finds Carol coming home from next door and they argue and Carol accuses Lindsay of being 'too close' to Jenny and when he goes out the next day, she forces Jenny to pack her bags and join her as they go live in the city with her friend Gaynor (Paula Duncan) and her drug dealer boyfriend. Carol needs a job so she reluctantly takes a job at a massage parlour Gaynor works at. Lindsay goes looking for Jenny, getting nowhere with police and not much better with a private detective until one day when Jenny spots Lindsay's car driving by and almost gets run over trying to go to it. She then runs off and takes the train back to Lindsay's house at the same time Carol calls the police to help find her. There's just one problem as she lives with a drug dealer and this sets off a remarkable series of events where Jenny ends up in government care, Lindsay a wanted man and a story so bizarre it actually ends with a happy ending of sorts.

Directed by action and Ozploitation legend Brian Trenchard-Smith (The Man From Hong Kong, Turkey Shoot, Dead End Drive-In, BMX Bandits, etc.), Jenny Kissed Me is absolutely not the type of movie you'd expect from him and save for a totally tacked on car chase scene, there's no action whatsoever. Instead, the movie is a turgid and overwrought domestic drama that rarely seems plausible and just when you think it's gotten too ridiculous, another thing is added to make it even more ridiculous. It plays like a more bombastic TV movie, one where even the writers of those would think it goes to ridiculous lengths to wrench more drama out of the story. Carol basically hates her kid, which is possible I guess but Lindsay is so into Jenny that you keep expecting it to go into creepy areas and except for one mention by Carol that is used to drive a wedge between them and a suggestive title, the movie doesn't go down that road. It is still a very weird relationship though. The acting is not bad but the real stand-out is Tamsin West on debut who is really good in her role and was a quality child and teen actress (check out Round The Twist and another Trenchard-Smith movie Frog Dreaming - obviously he was impressed by her). It's just a shame that this movie is so over-the-top and implausible because there's a solid basis of a story there. It just needed some restraint and Trenchard-Smith is the wrong director for that.

Sadly, the quality of the below videos is pretty bad, Cool Change is actually terrible and I wouldn't normally release videos of this poor quality but I've never seen it anywhere else. It's an old recording off a TV showing of the movie, so that's going to be worse than an original VHS tape. So until something better comes along, which is highly doubtful, this is it. Jenny Kissed Me is at least from an original tape but the movie is very dark at times and one of Deborra-Lee's nude scenes is impossible to see. Just get the feeling these movies may never turn up in better quality but I hope I'm wrong.

Both movies have nude scenes from Deborra-Lee including Cool Change which is rated PG so this a rare PG movie with nudity. She also has better nudity in the 1990 movie Waiting and very brief blink-and-you'l-miss PG nudity in the mini-series Glass Babies. Anyway, I know her better as the casting director of the greatest Australian movie of all-time, Houseboat Horror.

Cool Change

1986, vhs

Deborra-Lee Furness film clip (collages below)

Jenny Kissed Me

1985. vhs

Deborra-Lee Furness film clip (collages below)