They're a Weird Mob

They're a Weird Mob (1966)

An Italian sports journalist arrives in Australia but finds no work. The only employment he can find is as a builder's labourer. At first, he cannot comprehend the culture, but eventually he finds mateship and romance.

Date of release
1966-08-18
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (26)
Runtime
1h 48m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Michael Powell

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: A$2.4M
  • Based on: They're a Weird Mob
  • Filmed in: Sydney

They're a Weird Mob is a 1966 Australian comedy film directed by Michael Powell and starring Walter Chiari, Chips Rafferty and Claire Dunne. It was written by Richard Imrie based on the 1957 novel of the same title by John O'Grady under the pen name "Nino Culotta", the name of the main character of the book. It was the penultimate collaboration of British filmmakers Powell and Pressburger.

Production

They're a Weird Mob was optioned in 1959 by Gregory Peck with him to direct but not appear, but he could not come up with a workable screenplay. Michael Powell first read the novel in London in 1960 and wanted to turn it into a film but Peck had the rights. Powell obtained them three years later."

The film was one of a series of movies financed together by Rank and the NFFC. £166,925 of the budget came from the NFFC and Rank, the rest from the production company Williamson-Powell International Films.

Walter Chiari had previously visited Australia during the filming of On the Beach (1959), which starred his then-girlfriend Ava Gardner. Claire Dunne was working as a weather girl when cast in the female lead.

It was one of Muriel Steinbeck's last acting roles.

The film started filming in October 1965 and was shot at a number of locations in the area of Sydney:

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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