They’re a Weird Mob

Michael Powell’s Australian culture-clash comedy, a huge domestic hit, remains one of his most fascinating outliers.

  • Director

    Michael Powell

  • With

    Walter Chiari, Clare Dunne, Chips Rafferty, Alida Chelli

  • Australia 1966. 112min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    PG

All but blacklisted at home, Powell headed to Australia to adapt local author John O’Grady’s popular novel about a newly arrived Italian labourer’s culture clash with the Aussie way of life. Pressburger wrote the screenplay (under the alias Richard Imrie) and the result was a comedy rich in local colour and Sydney locations. It was an enormous hit down under.

James Bell

Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

Also available on BFI Player

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