THE TRUE STORY OF ESKIMO NELL

Australia, 1974, 104 minutes, Colour.
Max Gillies, Serge Lazareff, Paul Vachon, Abigail, Bruce Spence.
Directed by Richard Franklin.

Australian film-makers haven't stopped to blush about current frankness and permissiveness on today's screens. But the Australian films tend to emphasise the bawdy (as much different from the leering, the prurient or the coyly exploitive). Eskimo Nell is in the bawdy tradition, set in
the days of the Ballarat goldfields. Two phoney boasters search for Eskimo Nell, the eternal vision of the eternal male myth. Their adventures are not really as funny as intended. Max Gillies is good as Deadeye Dick, but Serge Lazareff is
wooden as Mexico Pete. Well-photographed, with even a steal from D.W. Griffith of peril on ice-floes, but only moderately entertaining.

1. Was this an enjoyable comedy? The value of a bawdy film? The validity of bawdiness in this kind of legend? The value of this film as an Australian bawdy legend? Was the film a success?

2. Comment on the values of the production of the film as Australian work. How successful in terms of photography, colour? The contribution of the acting and the screenplay?

3. Was the material in this bawdy legend offensive? Censorable? Or is this kind of bawdiness acceptable to adult audiences when it is accepted as it is? Why?

4. The irony of the title with the true story? The contrast with the legend? The fact that the legend was all talk and that the true story was all talk? How humorously ironic was this?

5. How important was the quest structure of the film? The escapades of the quest? The inevitable lack of fulfilment? The imaginary fulfilment for Dead-Eye? Dick? The comment on the human imagination? The male chauvinist imagination? The sexual search? The nature of a womper and this kind of jargon? Masculine-feminine relationships in this quest?

6. How typical a nun for a quest in a bawdy legend was Dead- Eye Dick? The initial voyeurism? The fact that he was old and dying? His persuasiveness as regards Pete? His creation of the past? The nature of his fantasies? His so-called toughness? His interaction with Pete? His decline? His vulgarity? The nature of the encounter with Nell and the sexual failure? The achievement in death? What comment was made on this kind of character via the legend and the quest?

7. How did Mexico Pete compare with Dick? The same kind of fantasy? The stud taking himself seriously, a fake, more tough than Dick, willing to help, sharing the quest? But flat and unimaginative compared with Dick? He sees the reality? He achieves the fulfilment with the unreal Nell that Dick dreamed about? What point was being made by the portrayal of Mexico Pete and the fulfilment of the legend?

8. The Australian background of the bush, the mines, the country towns, their Australian traditions of bawdiness, mateship, enterprise? Any comment being made by the film?

9. The portrayal of life on the mines? Bogger and his type of humour? As a mining type? The portrayal of the inns? The whores? Dick's compassion with Elli? The gambling background? The circus background and Esmeralda? The final inn and the real Nell? What comment was being made on the world by this kind of portrayal?

10. The quality of the bawdy verses and the incidents for enjoyment?

11. The Alaskan background and the legends? The humour in these stories? The importance of the parody of D.W. Griffiths' silent film with Nell on the icefloes and Dick rescuing her? The importance of its recurrence during the film? Compared with the imaginative Nell and the real Nell?

12. What did Nell really stand for in this film?

13. What is the value of making this kind of film for popular entertainment?