Blue Fin

1978 film

  • November 1978 (1978-11)
Running time
95 minutesCountryAustraliaLanguageEnglishBudgetAU $750,000[1]Box officeAU $703,000 (Australia)[2]

Blue Fin is a 1978 Australian family film directed by Carl Schultz and starring Hardy Krüger, Greg Rowe and Elspeth Ballantyne.[3] It is based on a 1969 Australian novel written by Colin Thiele.

Plot

Based on the children's novel by South Australian author Colin Thiele, this is a father and son story about tuna fishing of Southern Blue Fin tuna in South Australia's Port Lincoln fishing district. Accident-prone son Snook is forever making mistakes much to the chagrin of his father Pascoe. But when tragedy strikes the fishing boat during a deep sea fishing trek in the Southern Ocean, the boy is called on to become a man in a rites of sea passage to reconcile his past mishaps and save both his father and the ship from certain disaster.

Twelve-year-old Steve Pascoe is nicknamed 'Snook' by everyone in Port Lincoln. He's thin and long-faced, like the fish he's named after. At school he's no good at sport and, at home, his father scorns him. Snook joins his father and fellow crewmen on a tuna-fishing expedition, when disaster strikes. It is up to Snook to save himself and his father from a desperate situation.

Cast

  • Hardy Krüger as Bill Pascoe
  • Greg Rowe as Steve "Snook" Pascoe
  • Liddy Clark as Ruth Pascoe
  • Elspeth Ballantyne as Mrs. Pascoe
  • John Jarratt as Sam Snell
  • Hugh Keays-Byrne as Stan
  • George Spartels as Con
  • John Frawley
  • Terry Camilleri as Truckie

Production

The film is an unofficial follow up to Storm Boy (1976) with the same writer and star, also adapted from a Colin Thiele novel. The South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) did not want to use Henri Safran as director, though, so employed another director from the ABC, Carl Schultz.[4]

The film was shot in Streaky Bay in mid 1978.[5]

Reshoots

During post production editor Rod Adamson claimed the film would not cut together. Five weeks after filming had completed, Schultz had to leave the film to take up a directing job at the ABC. Accordingly, Matt Carroll of the SAFC called in Bruce Beresford, who was under contract to them, to re-shoot some sequences. Some of these had to be done using a body double for Hardy Kruger since he had returned to Europe.[4] Schultz was supportive of Beresford stepping in but was unhappy with the fact he supervised the final re-cut.[6]

Proposed Remake

In 2017 it was announced the movie would be remade.[7]

DVD release

A DVD was released on 1 January 2003.

References

  1. ^ Greg Kerr, "Blue Fin", Australian Film 1978-1992, Oxford Uni Press 1993 p15
  2. ^ Australian Films at the Box Office - Report to Film Victoria Archived 9 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine accessed 5 October 2012
  3. ^ Blue Fin (1978) Archived 4 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ a b David Stratton, The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival, Angus & Robertson, 1980 p271-272
  5. ^ "How the little town of Streaky Bay got into films". Australian Women's Weekly. Australia. 27 September 1978. p. 50. Retrieved 23 June 2020 – via Trove.
  6. ^ Peter Beilby & Rod Bishop, "Carl Schultz", Cinema Papers, Jan-Feb 1979 p242
  7. ^ Treloar, Casey (28 September 2017). "Port Lincoln setting for new Colin Thiele Blue Fin film". Port Lincoln Times.

External links

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Films directed by Carl Schultz
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