THE SLIM DUSTY MOVIE

Australia, 1984, 107 minutes, Colour.
Slim Dusty, Jon Blake.
Directed by Rob Stewart.

The Slim Dusty Movie is a genial film. It focuses on Australia's top record-selling star, a Country and western singer who has been popular over many decades right throughout the country. The film was produced and written by Kent Chadwick (Street Kids) and directed by Rob Stewart (The Timeless Land). Slim Dusty and his family appear as themselves. Inserted are some flashbacks enacted by Jon Blake and a supporting cast. The film gives a picture of Slim Dusty's background in the country in central north New South Wales and his emergence as a radio star and a singer on the road in the '40s and '50s. There is a glimpse of his marriage to his song writing wife Joy McKean?.

The film is virtually a concert tour by Slim Dusty, leaving Sydney at the opening and culminating in a performance at the Opera House (with more sophisticated, socially conscious lyrics for the songs). In the meantime we aria treated to a piece of Australiana, a portrait of the countryside, especially the north (Bowen, Charters Towers, Mt. Isa). There are concerts, glimpses of ordinary people .enjoying the concerts, Slim Dusty interacting with people. A focus is the Mt. Isa rodeo. There is also a visit to the aboriginal station of Peppiminarti (between Daly River and Port Keats). There is a corroboree and then a concert. Ayers Rock is also used. The film shows an alternate to the stories of the Australian cities. Filmed in Panavision and featuring a large number of Slim Dusty's songs, the film is both a memoir and a tribute as well as a visual album.

1. The popularity of Slim Dusty - as an Australian, singer, performer? His records? As a personality?

2. The treatment of Slim Dusty's life and career: biographical overview, the concert tour? The background of his Australian tours? His Australia? The Australian outback ethos, especially Queensland and the Northern Territory?

3. The appeal - to country audiences, to city audiences? Australian audiences? Overseas?

4. Panavision colour photography: the atmosphere of the flashbacks, the countryside, Sydney? The atmosphere of the 40s and 50s? Radio, carnivals, concerts? The contemporary Australia: Sydney, the Queensland towns, the Mt. Isa rodeo, the Northern Territory aboriginal station, Ayers Rock? The towns, the locations? The style of the concerts: performance, the band, audience response? The blending of action with songs e.g. the rodeo? The visits to the old-timers who worked with Slim Dusty or inspired the songs?

5. The songs themselves - the atmosphere of country, country music, American influence, Australian style? Lyrics, ballads? The stories behind the songs, Characters? The old days, nostalgia? The tribute to the old days and the country way of life? The finale and the socially-minded lyrics?

6. The tours and the audiences? Ordinary people? Country town people? The old-fashioned theatres - and the song lyric? Bowen and the concert? Mt. Isa and the pubs, the rodeo? The aborigines in the towns? The contrast with Peppiminarti and the corroboree and the concert in the open air? Central Australia, Ayers Rock? The truck-drivers? The trucking songs? The audience in the opera House? The film's focus on people?

7. The portrait of the group, the sequences in the cars and buses? Picking up hitchhikers? Allowing local guitar-players to join them in concert? The members of the group, their performances? Their being highlighted by Slim Dusty? Instruments, costume? Casual? Their enjoyment of the tours. contribution?

8. Slim Dusty's family and their skills, his wife and her singing and composition, son and daughter and their singing? Sharing the concerts? Spotlight?

9. The structure of the film: the framework of the tour and the concerts? The immediate on Slim and Joy? The insertion of the flashbacks? Slim as a boy, the country, the dances, his home, his father, the guitar-playing, changing his name, composing songs under the trees, the visit to the radio station and his singing? The war and the soldiers in the train? His father's support and the visit to Sydney? The language and style of his songs? Joy and her companion and the radio programme? His success? The records? The death of his father and the funeral? The tour, the carnivals, the detail of the carnivals? The small attendance at the concerts? His marriage to Joy, the wedding - with the typical photo poses of the time? The children, the tours? A pleasing picture of an Australian family?

10. Slim and his successful career, a man in his 50s? His clothes, hat? Manner of speaking? Working with his wife and family? Talking with people, driving, aware of the locals, signing autographs, well-known, his contacts - the old men and their stories, working with them in the songs? So many friends in the north? His charisma at the concerts? At the rodeo - the songs, introducing the riders? The bond with the aboriginals at Peppiminarti? The portrait of a 'fair dinkum good bloke'?

11. The kind of Australia portrayed? Queensland and the Northern Territory? Tough, pioneering, working? Rugged? Men and women - the station owners and workers of the north? The miners?

12. The portrait of the aboriginals - in the Queensland towns? The importance of the corroboree at Peppiminarti? The community? The concert and their listening to Slim?

13. An engaging tribute and memoir?