HIGH ROLLING

Australia, 1977, 83 minutes, Colour.
Joseph Bottoms, Grigor Taylor, Judy Davis, Wendy Hughes, Sandra Mc Gregor, Gus Mercurio.
Directed by Igor Auzins.

High Rolling was advertised as a "good times" film - but only when the phrase means doing what you like, when you like, without responsibility, moral scruple or concern for anyone except your mate. Attractive production technique and pleasing Sherbet music go towards 82 minutes (was the film planned as one of those inconsequential telemovies?) of wandering the Queensland roads where drugs, sex, booze and easy money are the taken for granted atmosphere and where Surfers' Paradise is the equivalent of the lurid corners of an advertising brochure. Now notable as Judy Davis' first film.

1. For whom was this film made? Age group.. Australian audiences, overseas? Success for the respective audiences?

2. The technical side of the film: location photography, glossy presentation, musical score?

3. The American models of the 'road' film and men wandering up and down the road, various adventures? The fact that Tex was an American? Indication of the American influence on Australia,, Australian entertainment?

4. How authentic the Australian atmosphere? How authentic a portrait of a cross-section of Australians? Queensland? Fairgrounds, people on the road. Surfers' Paradise, the nightclubs, the wanderers, the drug peddlers,, the police. the tourists? Appropriate for this kind of comedy melodrama?

5. The atmosphere of North Queensland and the carnival? Tex and his shooting gallery, Alby and his boxing? The casual promiscuity of the girls? The brutality of the fight and Alby moving away from it?

6. Tex and Alby as friends? The bonds they had in common. the yearning for freedom and independence,. how ordinary and typical of men of their age? Aims in life, wandering. lack of money. ambition? Relating to each other in friendship, attitude towards girls,, sexuality? Their hitchhiking? Their quest in moving south? The significance of the sequence in the church and the discussion about freedom and the ironic and permissive touch they gave it?

7. The highway and the people on it? Picking up the girlfriend? The man peddling the drugs and the room at the motel. the set-up and the fight? Their taking the car and its consequences? The repercussions at the end with the thugs arriving with the driver? The amoral attitudes of Tex and Alby towards drugs, easy money taking the car?

8. The girl and her being picked up by them, their showing off in the car? Her aims in going to the commune,, thinking she would be a prostitute? Genial friendship with the boys? Her arrival at Surfers and going off happily,. giving them the money to pay for the hamburgers etc., the sequence on the beach. sharing the experience with them, her reliability with the car at the end?

9. The presentation of Surfers' Paradise, its gloss. clothes, the beach, nightclubs,, girls singing there,, the bouncers and their brutality? Easy wealth, permissiveness the trading of drugs? Tex and Alby enjoying this, especially with their change of clothes, their behaviour in the nightclub and making friends with the girls? The effect of being thrown out of the nightclub? Alby and his spending all the money?

10. The picture of the girls as singers in the nightclub,, the act and their song, their attitude towards Tex and Alby, drinks, spending,, taking all of his money. taking the drugs?

11. Tex and the repercussions of the bashing? The night on the beach and coming to his senses?

12. Decisions about getting the drugs, the idea of the highway robbery? The preparations with the sheep, the comedy style, the genial kind of robbery. the passengers, the driver and his commentary and reaction, the arrival of the police? The humour and melodrama of the chase?

13. Audience enjoyment of this kind of picaresque story attitudes of humour, observation of life,, values or lack of values?