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image of person or book cover 9171056662880819528.jpg
Screen cap from promotional trailer
form y separately published work icon Alvin Purple single work   film/TV   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 1973... 1973 Alvin Purple
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Alvin is an average man, except that women find him irresistible. The only woman that Alvin really wants is his platonic friend Tina, but he appears to feel no sexual desire for her. He follows her to a convent, where he gets a job as gardener.

A 'sexist sex comedy', made during the peak of the feminist debate in Australia, Alvin Purple reverses the feminist polemic of men oppressing women by having its protagonist pursued by a constant stream of predatory women. He is victimised even more when he refuses sex. Paul Byrnes (Australian Screen) notes that 'the film was [also] reacting against entrenched puritanical attitudes in Australian society. To some it was prurient farce; to others, it was exposing the repression that produced such prurience.'

Tom O'Regan notes in 'Cinema Oz: The Ocker Films' (1989) that Alvin's 'ordinariness seems irresistible to women. The comedy is based on incongruity. Sex is rendered as slapstick. Jokes are at the expense of bastions of hypocrisy - psychiatry, the press and the law. The would-be recessive hero is the object of male sexual fantasy - sex without responsibility - a fantasy with which women could also apparently identify.'

[Source: Paul Byrnes, Tom O'Regan, and Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper]

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Hexagon Productions , 1973 .
      image of person or book cover 9171056662880819528.jpg
      Screen cap from promotional trailer
      Link: U8861Australian Screen (e-clips) (Sighted 2/9/2010)
      Extent: 95 min.p.
      Description: Colour
      Series: form y separately published work icon The 'Alvin Purple' Films Australia : 1973-1984 7579192 1973 series - publisher film/TV

      A series of films centring on Alvin Purple and, later, his son Melvin, who share the trait of being irresistible to women.

      Alvin Purple and Alvin Rides Again were made back-to-back and by the same creative team: Melvin, Son of Alvin was made significantly later with a different writer and director.

      Number in series: 1

Works about this Work

Alvin Purple Alexandra Heller-Nicholas , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Metro Magazine , Summer vol. 191 no. 2017; (p. 108-191)
When Alvin Purple was released in 1973, I was glad that it proved popular but never, for a moment, thought it was of any other significance. Since then, several writers, including Catherine Lumby, caused me to rethink my snobbish perspective on the film. Now Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' insightful essays gives further grounds for reappraisal, placing the film in dual contexts of 'then' and 'now', and providing persuasive arguments for considering this light-hearted comic piece on a commentary on changing sexual and gender mores, and as a phenomenon of the Australian film revival. It's easy to forget how largely dormant the local film industry had been until the early 1970s, and Alvin Purple's popularity should make us try to understand the basis of this. The current essay makes a serious contribution to this process. – Brian McFarlaneBrian McFarlane, Series Editor.
We Got Naked for Progress Graeme Blundell , 2014 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 31 May - 1 June 2014; (p. 17)
Alvin Purple Alexandra Heller-Nicholas , 2012 single work essay
— Appears in: World Film Locations : Melbourne 2012; (p. 30-31)
Passionate Amateurs : The Experimental Film and Television Fund and Modernist Film Practice in Australia Lisa French , Mark Poole , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Australasian Cinema , 24 August vol. 5 no. 2 2011; (p. 171-183)
'Most histories of the dynamism of the Australian film industry in the 1970s explore feature films, but a vital part of the creativity and energy of the revival occurred in the non-feature sector. A significant site of experimentation and originality in form, content and technique was the Experimental Film and Television Fund (EFTF). From its inception in 1970, The Australian Film Institute (AFI) managed the fund until 1977 when the Australian Film Commission (AFC) assumed control of it. Drawing on a series of interviews with key players involved in the fund during the AFI's tenure, and research for the book, Shining a Light: 50 Years of the Australian Film Institute (French and Poole 2009), this article traces this significant period of the history of Australian film production, and proposes that the AFI played an important role in promoting modernist film practice, and the Australian film revival, through its management of the EFTF.' (Editor's abstract)
y separately published work icon Alvin Purple Laura Keenan , Perth : Centre for Research in Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) , 2008 Z1666345 2008 single work criticism Research undertaken by a student of the Centre for Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) into Alvin Purple (1973). Includes aspects relating to the production phase, critical reception, principal performers and production crew, references and a synopsis
y separately published work icon Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2008 Z1508682 2008 single work criticism

'One of the seminal films of the 1970s, Alvin Purple depicts Alvin's struggles with his irresistibility to women - from his school days and time as a waterbed salesman to his short-lived career as a sex therapist. The 'definitive ocker comedy', Alvin Purple survived a critical mauling and went on to become the most commercially successful Australian film of the 1970s.

'Catharine Lumby takes a fresh look at the film, the social and political era in which it was made and the forces that fuelled its success. She revisits claims that the movie is little more than an exercise in sexploitation and argues that the film is far more complex than its detractors have allowed.' (Publisher's blurb)

According to McFarlane 'Lumby situates this discourse on Alvin as a representation of female desire in the 1970s context of a feminist polemics which made itself felt variously in the high-level argumentation of a Germaine Greer and in more populist vein in the pages of Cleo magazine.'

Mirror on Our Past Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 14-15 June 2008; (p. 21)
Catharine Lumby recalls the year in which Alvin Purple first hit Australia's cinema screens.
y separately published work icon The Naked Truth : A Life in Parts Graeme Blundell , Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia , 2008 Z1522931 2008 single work autobiography

'The Naked Truth is the very personal story of Graeme Blundell - Australia's first sex icon (by chance), a founder of the Melbourne's theatre groups La Mama and Playbox, which showed audiences that actors could speak in Australian English, and now an acclaimed writer and journalist.

'From his a childhood in Melbourne's working-class outer suburbs Graeme passionately followed his dreams to become a central part of Australian popular culture. He has worked in films, TV and theatre. The hit movie Alvin Purple made him Australia's first permissive pin-up, and he became a symbol of the early seventies - an era everyone still wants to be part of.

'Actor, director, producer, biographer, critic and journalist, Blundell established theatre companies and was there when they closed, watched the film industry through its many renaissances, and television as it became an addictive digital environment. In The Naked Truth Blundell writes about Australian life in the 40s, 50s and on with the insight of someone who was always part of the action - whether he wanted to be or not.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Not Quite Hollywood : The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! Paul Harris , Collingwood : Madman Entertainment , 2008 Z1636275 2008 single work criticism (taught in 1 units)

Not Quite Hollywood is the story of Ozploitation.

More explicit, violent and energetic than anything out of Hollywood, Aussie genre movies such as Alvin Purple, The Man From Hong Kong, Patrick, Mad Max and Turkey Shoot presented a unique take on established cinematic conventions.

In England, Italy and the grindhouses and Drive-ins of North America, audiences applauded our homegrown marauding revheads with their brutish cars; our sprnky well-stacked heroines and our stunts - unparalleled in their quality and extreme danger!

Busting with outrageous anecdotes, trivia and graphic poster art - and including isights from key cast, crew and fans - including Quentin Tarantino - this is the wild, untold story of an era when Aussie cinema got its gear off and showed the world a full-frontal explosion of boobs, pubes, tubes...and even a little kung fu!

y separately published work icon Alvin Purple Laura Keenan , Perth : Centre for Research in Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) , 2008 Z1666345 2008 single work criticism Research undertaken by a student of the Centre for Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) into Alvin Purple (1973). Includes aspects relating to the production phase, critical reception, principal performers and production crew, references and a synopsis
Last amended 10 Jul 2014 15:49:23
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