Flashback

I watched the film Monkey Grip last night






This film was made in 1982, set in Melbourne in the 70s (Carlton where I was livinge some 20 years later) - oddly though it was mostly filmed in Sydney - something to do with the budget being a small one - although some of it must have been shot in Melbourne, because there were trams in it and the Carlton Post Office. Oh, how that brought back memories. I remember the Carlton post office - the place where I as a struggling-wannabe-artist would go and spend all my money on rent and bills - unlike my stuggling artist partner who spent his dosh on pretty much the same thing as the character of Javo (Colin Friels) in the film does.

I hadn't seen the movie before but I had read the book a few years back. Can't think why I hadn't seen the film as during the 80's I was very keen on all Australian made films....

Noni Hazelhurst, playing the love-addicted Nora looked so young and tiny. She must have been about 29 when it was made but she looked like more like a 19-year-old.

I kept trying to place where I'd seen Alice Garner, who plays Gracie, the young daughter of Nora. Remember the hippie chic in Sea Change? I loved that character. (I've only just figured out she's Helen Garner's daughter. Helen Garner wrote the book.)

And then my favourite - Chrissie Amphlett playing Angela - and the Divinyls featured in the film as a band. I will always think Chrissie Amphlett is perhaps the most interesting woman I've ever met. I know, I'm bragging/name-dropping. I did meet her though, very briefly, in an earlier life in Sydney in the early eighties - not long after the film was made. I was so in awe of her, and think I still am to this day. She was really very gentle and softly spoken, and not surprisingly, totally different to her onstage persona.

I also met Rick Grossman, (the then bass player of the Divinyls) at a party in a tiny, tiny flat - amazing how many parties were held in places that were smaller than a broom cupboard. (These days I couldn't stick it due to claustrophobia and quite possibly wouldn't get my fat arse through the door of such a tiny box). Anyways, this tiny flat in Rushcutter's Bay was where I was living/squatting?crashing? - it was the 80's after all - and I totally put my foot in my 80's purple-lipstick-covered mouth by asking him what he did. Bit of a social gaffe, considering that the Divinyls were a pretty well known band at the time. I gulped, stammered and made a hasty retreat and avoided him for the rest of the evening out of sheer embarrassment. (Spot the naieve young thing from Adelaide.)

Anyway, I (along with ensuing boyfriends over the next decade or so) have Chrissie to thank for inspiring me to go on to become quite the Bad Girl - back in Adelaide, of course, because I couldn't really hack Sydney. It seemed like everyone started using heroin and, luckily, I've always been squeamish about needles.

oh, and I did rub shoulders very briefly with Noni, when she came to South Aus to film "The Shiralee" with the SA Film Corp (on location up at Quorn.)

All right, possums. That's more than enough of history for today and certainly enough name-dropping for a while too.

Tune in next week when I reminisce about that year or two I spent stalking Vince Jones in Melbourne....

I'm kidding.

Sort of.

Please forgives me the not checkings of the spellings, possums.