Stork (1971)

This was embarrassing. Dated, stupid and clumsy to the point of being obnoxious, I cannot believe so many iconic Australian film people were involved. Given that it was made in 1976, I guess they all were doing work experience.

This low-brow, low-budget, pre-ocker era affair can be credited with the revival of the Australian film industry, with its box-office success leading to distributors Village Roadshow establishing the Hexagon production house which released "Alvin Purple" in 1973. On its own, "Stork" is mildly amusing, though much of the comedic timing is well off. In 1967, Burstall's then-wife Betty had established the experimental caf/studio 'La Mama' in Carlton, based on off-off-Broadway theatres in New York, precisely to encourage the development of Australian stage- and screen-writing. (La Mama achieved notoriety in 1969 when a performance of Alex Buzo's play "Norm and Ahmed" led to the arrest of several actors for using ?obscene language.) Williamson sent Betty Burstall numerous scripts before one was selected for further development and potential performance at La Mama, which at that stage was really a collective of artists including Burstall, Spence, Finney and Blundell. "The Coming of Stork" was the first successful full-length play for both La Mama and Williamson, and Tim Burstall, who at that stage was already known as an artistic filmmaker in Melbourne, began attending rehearsals and performances, and selected it as his next feature film project. After the completion of Burstall's first feature film, "2000 Weeks", David Bilc*ck (who had edited) and Robin Copping (who had directed its photography) had established a film production house, through which they helped Burstall raise the finance. For his actors, Burstall selected Spence and Blundell from the La Mama collective, and brought in the NIDA-trained Weaver, McEuan and Bakaitis from Sydney. The film was shot in Melbourne over about a month, for $80 000.