Aussie award-winner

Press, 12 August 1986, Page 17

Aussie award-winner

“FRAN” Starring Non! Hazlehurst, Annie Byron, Alan Fletcher, Narelle Simpson, Travis Ward, Rosie Logie and Danny Adcock. Written and directed by Glenda Hambly. CBS/ Fox. 94 mins. M. Fran started life behind the eight-ball. She never knew her father, her mother was an alcoholic and she was made a ward of the state at the age of five.

Fran, now in her 30s, lives with her three children in a bland surburban house in a drab district She is restless and has no intention of settling down. She has a way of attracting men and manages to pick up a barman, Jeff. Their relationship develops to the point where Fran is willing to follow him around the country. Unfortunately, Fran’s three children do not fit in with Jeffs plans and Fran, blinded by love, dumps her kids with relatives for a “few days”

while she goes off with Jeff.

A "few days” becomes a few months and her children are placed in a welfare home. From then on, Fran’s life is an endless battle with debt collectors and welfare officials. Not only is she fighting for her children, she’s fighting to be loved. Fittingly, this movie was a winner of three Australian Film Institute Awards — best actress, Noni Hazlehurst; best supporting actress, Annie Byron; and best screenplay, Glenda Hambly. “Fran” is a powerful commentary on a problem that is no respecter of social status. It shows with poignant simplicity the vulnerability of the innocent victims of marital disruption —- the children. Glenda Hambly’s script and screenplay leave the viewer with the haunting concern that Fran’s trau-

matic life-cycle is about to begin all over again, this time for her daughter. ‘BLESS THE BEASTS AND CHILDREN’ Starring Billy Mummy, Barry Robins, Miles Chapin. Directed by Stanley Kramer. RCA/Coiumbia. 199 minutes. M.

This movie is a passionate statement about the protection of the environment, particularly the culling of the American buffalo as an excuse for sport

The producer and director, Stanley Kramer, devised a shock opening scene that certainly makes you sit up and pay attention to the stark brutality of the cull.

Featured among the young and largely unknown cast is a teen-age Billy Mummy, who is best recognised for his role as Will Robinson from the

1960 s fantasy, “Lost in Space.” Mummy plays one of the six boys who, as total failures in everything they try to do and as emotionally disturbed misfits, are thrown together at a summer camp.

Sickened and appalled by the cold-bloodedness of the buffalo shoot, they become determined to set free the remaining doomed animals. With clever use of flashbacks, the film brings viewers a closer insight into the reasons behind each boy’s emotional hang-ups, as the six of them advance falteringly to their latenight mission of mercy. Individually, the misfits grow in character and self-esteem through a series of adventures, but, as a spectacle, this is also where the. film loses its initial magnetism. The “adventures” are too tame. Enid Blyton could have injected much more imagination and excitement into the escapades. The verdict of younger viewers — boring. In many ways it is a disappointing movie from Stanley Kramer, who has long been involved in films that have topped the social conscience.

His previous excellent work has included “The Men,” a film dealing with the psychological damage to veterans of war; “The Wild One,” the first film to investigate youth rebellion following World War O; “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a memorable movie about a white woman engaged to a black man; and “Judgment at Nuremburg,” about man’s inhumanity as evidenced by the Nazi holocaust

“Bless the Beasts and Children" does not come up to his previous standards, but the film’s title song performed by “The Carpenters,” was an Oscar nomination for songwriters Barry De Vorzon and Perry Botkin jun.

REVIEW