Film and Drama
See also: List of movies filmed in MelbourneMelbourne has been the setting for many novels, television dramas, and films. Fergus Hume's international best-seller Mystery of a Hansom Cab was set in Gold Rush era Melbourne. Frank Hardy's Power Without Glory tells the story of Melbourne businessman John West (based on the real-life John Wren) and is set in a thinly disguised Collingwood, then a working-class suburb of Melbourne. Perhaps the best-known novel internationally is Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach. In 1959, it was made into a film directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins. The film depicted the denizens of Melbourne quietly slipping off into eternity as the last victims of a global nuclear holocaust. It was filmed on location in and around Melbourne. Similar filming was undertaken when a 2000 television movie remake was produced.
The world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was filmed in Melbourne in 1906. Some of the more famous Australian films include Mad Max and The Castle. Melbourne has also produced many talented film and television actors including Cate Blanchett, Guy Pearce, Eric Bana and is home to Geoffrey Rush.
Australian audiences saw Melbourne portrayed in the 1960s–70s Crawford Productions police television drama series Homicide and Division 4. Contemporary series include: soap opera Neighbours, Stingers (an undercover police drama), The Secret Life of Us, Kath and Kim, Prisoner (known as Prisoner: Cell Block H for US and UK broadcasts), Halifax f.p., and MDA.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the words film and, film and/or drama:
“The obvious parallels between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz have frequently been noted: in both there is the orphan hero who is raised on a farm by an aunt and uncle and yearns to escape to adventure. Obi-wan Kenobi resembles the Wizard; the loyal, plucky little robot R2D2 is Toto; C3PO is the Tin Man; and Chewbacca is the Cowardly Lion. Darth Vader replaces the Wicked Witch: this is a patriarchy rather than a matriarchy.”
—Andrew Gordon, U.S. educator, critic. “The Inescapable Family in American Science Fiction and Fantasy Films,” Journal of Popular Film and Television (Summer 1992)
“A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)