WWTW Interview: ‘Not Quite Hollywood’ director Mark Hartley

The joy of attending a film festival is getting your socks knocked clean off when you least expect it.

Last year’s Starz Denver Film Festival screened “Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation,”

Suffice to say I left the theater shoeless. Who knew documentaries could be so much fun?

The film is just now hitting DVD shelves (Oct. 6), but in preparation for its release I reached out to the film’s director, Mark Hartley, for a Q&A.

It’s hardly a shock Hartley proved to be as witty and full of life as his new film.

WWTW: I understand the idea for your movie came from chatting with veteran behind-the-scenes talent. What stories in particular struck you about the Ozploitation era and made you want to take on this topic?

MH: I stumbled across Aussie genre films on late night TV when I was a kid. When I tried to read about them in library books on Australian cinema I discovered that the only history of Australian film that had documented in length was the making of our much more “worthy” productions – “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” My Brilliant Career,” “Breaker Morant,” etc. The genre films had been either derisively dismissed or totally ignored.

Years later I forged a career making music videos and while chatting to the old time crews I heard amazing stories about directors setting themselves on fire to prove to the leading man that it could be done safely (vaguely convinced, the actor, George Lazenby, discovered what really happens when you set yourself on fire – you burn!), about mice being put in latex werewolf fetus suits, about Dennis Hopper being pronounced legally dead due to the alcohol and substance content in his blood. These weren’t the stories you were going to hear about the making of the latest Baz Luhrman film!

WWTW: Was it hard to get the rights to show the clips in the film? Any particularly steep hurdles you had to overcome in the making of your movie?

MH: I had seen a lot of film docs where they talk about amazing movies and then cut to ratty looking footage. I made the decision early on that all our material was going to be transferred from the original film components and graded to look as good as it did when it first screened in cinemas. “Not Quite Hollywood” features clips from over 80 films and one of the biggest production problems was tracking down the copyright holders – and then finding the original negs to transfer to HD. Thankfully we have the National Film and Sound Archive in Australia and they had a large number of the titles stored there. Other titles were found in the garages of producers and in labs in Sweden and LA. The only original film material we couldn’t get access to was “Mad Max.” We got hold of print #8 from its original Australian release and it was so heavily scratched from 30 years of outback drive-in screenings that it was like watching the film through a blizzard!

The main hurdle in getting the film made was raising the finance. I discovered it isn’t easy to convince the Australian government funding bodies to invest in a documentary that celebrates a large body of work that they’re eternally and unapologetically ashamed of. After about five years of knock backs I gave up. Then I read an interview with Quentin Tarantino where he spoke about his love of Australian genre films. We tracked down his email and sent his assistant a 100-page research document I had written. It wasn’t to lure him to the project – which I thought was dead, I simply thought that he would enjoy reading it. The next day I got an email back saying, “Quentin will do whatever he can to help you get this project up.” So we flew over to LA, shot an exhaustive interview with Tarantino and I used that as a pitch to get the film made. Having Tarantino in the film ultimately helped secure investment and distribution from Magnolia, Optimum and Madman and that triggered the rest of the finance in Australia. It only took ten years.

WWTW: How do you see the films featured in your movie as being either uniquely Australian or heavily influenced by Australian mores?

MH: As discussed in the doc, Australia in the late ‘60s was one of the most heavily censored countries in the world. Replicas of the statue of David were banned – so you can imagine how truncated the “art” films were that screened! Then, in 1974 the R-certificate was introduced which allowed adults to see “mature” content on screen and Aussie audiences flocked to see anything that had a hint of the taboo. The local film industry (which had been dormant since the ‘50s) started producing unprecedented box office hits like “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie” and “Alvin Purple” – and it was on for young and old! So much so that crowds lined-up around the block to see John Lamond’s “Australia After Dark” (a down-under “Mondo Cane”) and Brian Trenchard-Smith’s VD expose, “The Love Epidemic.” Our films were rude, crude and packed with pubes – and local audiences couldn’t get enough of them.

WWTW: Film critics are generally less kind to genre films. Do you think the passage of time has made critics reconsider the films showcased in your film and/or their cultural impact?

MH: One of the critics featured in the doc is a gentleman named Bob Ellis. He says in the film that (producer) Tony Ginnane and his work “should be burned to the ground and the ashes sewn with salt”. I spoke to Bob after the Sydney premiere and said, “so, now do you admit that “Roadgames” is a good film?” He said “nope.” “How about “Long Weekend?” “Nope – they’re all [expletive]!”

Thankfully not all critics think that way, and I believe the work of undervalued auteurs like Richard Franklin and Brian Trenchard-Smith is now finally getting re-appraised.

WWTW: Which of the films featured in “Not Quite Hollywood” entertained you the most – and why?

MH: When I was a kid I caught on late night TV a trio of Aussie genre films, “The Man from Hong Kong,” “Patrick,” and “Snapshot.” They are the films that made the biggest impression on me because I discovered for the first time that we could make entertainingly outrageous films in Australia.

“The Man From Hong Kong” opens with a chopper chase and fistfight on Ayers Rock and (as mentioned above) boasts the sight of Australia’s own James Bond, George Lazenby, karate kicking while on fire! “Patrick” was about an unblinking comatose killer with telekinetic powers and ‘Snapshot” had as its instrument of evil a killer Mr. Whippy ice-cream van!

WWTW: Do you think ozploitation/grindhouse films could succeed today, and what were your thoughts of the Rodriguez/Tarantino Grindhouse double feature?

MH: I believe these are the types of films that transformed into the big Hollywood blockbuster. “Mad Max,” “The Man from Hong Kong,” “Razorback” – the big budget studio equivalents of these films are still hitting the multiplex screens. In regards to the “Grindhouse” double bill, I really enjoyed “Planet Terror” (it was good to see Jeff Fahey finally get a decent role) but “Death Proof” was a disappointment. I think Quentin forgot one of the golden rules of Ozploitation/grindhouse cinema – less talk and more action.

WWTW: Talk about the films’ reception in Australia – has the film revived interest in some of the films featured in the documentary?

MH: One of my biggest pleasures in the aftermath of the film was seeing festivals embrace the idea of Ozploitation retrospectives. From Austin to London to Brussels, 35mm prints of these films have been screening to enthusiastic and appreciative audiences.

It always seemed to me that Ozploitation was the last bastion of unexplored genre cinema and the feedback I have been getting is that a large number of people have been leaving “Not Quite Hollywood” screenings with a long list of titles to add to their Netflix queue. Having the DVD will make this a helluva lot easier!

(Photo: A shot from “Dead End Drive In,” one of the many outrageous Aussie films featured in the new documentary “Not Quite Hollywood.”/Magnolia Home Entertainment)

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