Sunstruck

Sunstruck
Directed by James Gilbert
Produced by Jack Neary
James Grafton
Written by Stan Mars
Starring Harry Secombe
Music by Peter Knight
Cinematography Brian West
Edited by Anthony Buckley
Barry Peters
Production
company
Immigrant Productions
Distributed by British Empire Films
Release dates
18 November 1972
Running time
92 mins
Country Australia
Language English
Budget A$400,000[1]

Sunstruck is a 1972 British-Australian comedy film directed by James Gilbert and starring Harry Secombe, Maggie Fitzgibbon and John Meillon.[2]

Plot

Stanley Evans, a Welsh schoolteacher, decides to emigrate to Australia for a better life but ends up working in a school in the dead-end town of Kookaburra Springs. He forms a school choir and decides to compete in a singing competition in Sydney.[3] It is also known by the alternative title of Education of Stanley Evans.

Cast

Production

The film was inspired by a poster used by the New South Wales government to attract teachers from Britain, where a teacher wearing swimmers and an academic board stands on Bondi Beach. It was designed as a vehicle for Harry Secombe and was shot near Parkes in New South Wales from January 1972. The budget mostly came from United States and British sources, with $100,000 from the Australian Film Development Corporation.[1][4]

The pupils seen acting at choir practice in the early part of the film were from Afon Taf High School in Troedyrhiw. The choir recorded the entire choral soundtrack at the school and it was used in both the Welsh and Australian sequences. The beginning of the film used locations in two Welsh mining villages; Treharris and Trelewis near Merthyr Tydfil. The name of the school is Webster Street School, Treharris which has since been demolished for housing.

Release

The film did not perform particularly well commercially or critically.[1]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p267
  2. http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/52819
  3. Readle p.184
  4. "FEATURES WRITERS' WORLD BOOKS Dusty bush setting for former Goon's film.". The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995) (ACT: National Library of Australia). 22 January 1972. p. 11. Retrieved 10 December 2013.

External links


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