Arthur Dignam Movies

The cinematic debut of Aboriginal filmmaker Ivan Sen, Beneath Clouds finds light-skinned Abiriginal girl Lena Danielle Hall) making her way towards Sydney as she searches for her Irish father and contends with an escaped convict named Vaughn (Damian Pitt) along the way. An embittered youth who at first clashes with Lena, the couple must learn to put aside their differences as they navigate their way through the treacherous landscape over the course of twenty-four hours. Confronted by such obstacles as prejudiced shop owners and racist policemen, time begins to run short as tempers flare and the duo searches for transportation and sustenance. Despite the fact that each represents everything about society that the other finds reprehensible, it isn't long before Lena and Vaughn begin to find their feeling for one another developing in a manner that neither had anticipated. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A pair of disparate battling lovers get a chance to live in each other's shoes in this lively Australian sex comedy. Though they have been together over a year, Tash and Brett have reached a point where they believe that neither understands the other. Tash is a serious, highly intelligent science journalist while hunky Brett hosts a music video show on an MTV-like network. Both gain a lot more understanding when something magical happens and they find that they have switched bodies. Poor Brett finds himself having to deal with uncomfortable female fashions, monthly cycles, and a highly competitive intellectual job. Poor Tash learns that being cool and handsome isn't as easy as it looks either. Then there is that little matter of making love.... ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Isabelle Eberhardt dramatizes the tragic true story of the iconoclastic Swiss-born writer, who gained notoriety for both her lifestyle and her work in North Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. Eberhardt (Mathilda May) began dressing as a man and converted to Islam in her teens. As the film opens, she returns from the African desert to tend to her ailing father in Geneva. After his death, the wife of the Marquis de Mores summons her to Paris. The Marquis has gone missing in North Africa, because of Eberhardt's familiarity with the region, his wife pays her to go and track her husband down. Eberhardt settles in Algiers, where, hindered by the French authorities, she quickly gives up the search for de Mores, assuming that he's dead. She stays in North Africa, journeys frequently into the desert, and writes about her experiences for publisher Victor Barrucand (Claude Villers). The hard drinking Eberhardt meets Slimene (Tcheky Karyo of The Patriot), a Foreign Legion soldier, and falls in love with him. Through him, she makes contact with the secretive Sufi brotherhood of Qadriya. As she witnesses the abuses of the French colonists, her writings grow more political in nature and she starts to get more attention. One French military officer, Comte (Richard Moire) imprisons and abuses her. When an Arab swordsman viciously attacks her, Eberhardt holds Comte responsible. He eventually arranges for her deportation. But the resilient Eberhardt returns to North Africa, against Slimene's wishes. There, another French officer, Major Lyautey (Peter O'Toole) befriends her. He seems a decent man, but when he asks her to report to him on Arab groups hostile to the French, she wrestles with her conscience. Australian director Ian Pringle would later go on to produce Romper Stomper, starring Russell Crowe. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

"Everlasting Secret Family" is the name of a sub-rosa homosexual brotherhood in this riveting Australian film. Two of the ESF members are a middle-aged politician (Arthur Dignam) and a boarding-school student (Mark Lee). The younger man begins chafing at the "plaything" status imposed upon him by the older members of ESF. His resentment culminates in a battle of wills between himself and the senator's politically expedient "straight" wife (Heather Mitchell). Dispensing with subtlety, Everlasting Secret Family suggests that, like the so-called mainstream political scene, the gay lifestyle can become a dangerously manipulative power trip in the wrong hands. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in the 1830s, this historical drama stars Robin Soans as George Loveless, a Methodist minister whose flock is a group of working families in Tolpuddle, a small town in the British Southwest. Most of the workers in the community are under the thumb of Frampton (Robert Stephens), a ruthless land owner, and his overseer Clerk (Murray Melvin); Frampton and Clerk demand long hours from their workers and pay meager wages. Convinced that the workers deserve a better shake, Loveless, encouraged by organizer Mr. Pitt (Michael Hordern), forms the Society of Friends, an early labor union, and organizes the men to negotiate with Frampton for better pay. When their salaries are instead cut, Loveless and his men go on strike, which could cripple Frampton financially. However, Frampton is well-connected, and soon both the government and private militias are sent in to break the strike and punish the rebellious laborers. The supporting cast includes James Fox, Freddie Jones, and Vanessa Redgrave. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, this film tells the tale of Robert O'Hara Burke (Jack Thompson) and William John Wills (Nigel Havers), who in 1860 set forth to create the first accurate maps of the interior region of the Australian continent. To this end, Irish explorer Burke and British scientist Wills journeyed from the Southern coast of Carpenteria to the North. While they succeeded with the first part of their voyage, on the return trip they and their compatriots fell victim to intense heat and diminishing supplies of food; of the 19 men who began the expedition, only one survived to tell the tale. However, while fate was cruel to Burke and Wills, history was kind, and their story is still taught in every Australian classroom. Graeme Clifford's biopic was praised for its striking visuals and realistic portrayal of Burke and Wills' difficult journey. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Henri Safran adapts Henrik Ibsen's stage play to an Australian setting and a turn-of-the-century ambience in this uneven presentation of an illicit love and its consequences. Harold (Jeremy Irons) is a somewhat over-the-edge photographer who has lost out at a career in the sciences. His wife Gina (Liv Ullmann) is an opposite personality type: subdued, quiet, not prone to excessive outbursts. Harold's father the Major (John Meillon) lives with the family, which includes the daughter Henrietta (Lucinda Jones) who is slowly going blind -- and all is as normal as possible until Gregory (Arthur Dignam) shows up and in a two-day period, tragedy strikes. The prig Gregory sees it as his obligation to open up his best friend Harold's eyes with some shocking news: Henrietta is not really Harold's daughter at all, but the offspring of an illicit affair between Gregory's father and Gina. Figuring into this relationship is a wild duck that was once wounded by Gregory's father, and its symbolism looms almost too large over the rest of the complex, claustrophobic household as personalities lead events to their fateful end. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This patchy, uneven combination of fantasy and musical comedy is hilarious in parts and embarrassing in others, though the premise has great potential in itself -- a screwball Captain Invincible is out to save the world from his nemesis, Mr. Midnight, the white supremacist. Captain Invincible (Alan Arkin) is wallowing in his cups in the Australian outback when he receives an unusual call from the American President asking for his help. Unusual because the Captain had no choice but to go into exile after Joseph McCarthy's Un-American Activities Committee became suspicious of his red cape, and he has never been sober enough to recover from the shock. This history is given in a mock newsreel at the beginning of the film. But now Mr. Midnight is threatening to dismember New York City by convincing all the ethnic groups to live along the seashore. Once they are situated on beachfront property, he will blast out a crack in the earth behind them, cut their connection to the mainland, and send them drifting off into the Atlantic. It seems the dastardly Midnight has stolen the ultra-secret hypno-ray and can slice off New Jersey whenever he wants. Weakened by depression and alcohol, Captain Invincible is nursed back to full throttle by Patty Patria (Kate Fitzpatrick) and is soon ready to zoom over Sydney to the far side of the globe -- after practicing in harness in front of rear-projected scenes. Meanwhile, Mr. Midnight and his sidekick are all set to defend their turf, and their ability to slice it up -- though the (American) patriotic sentimentality that prevails in the end, after several other songs have come and gone, is summarized in a rendition of "God Bless America" that conflicts with the opening scenes and may leave foreign audiences cold. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When a Melbourne toy manufacturer discovers his wife is having an affair, he can't really get too distressed. After all, he's having an affair as well. However, when his mistress decides she wants to get married, his life becomes complicated and his business affairs have to be put on hold. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

In the late 1970s, Grendel by John Gardner was a highbrow best-seller that everyone with pretensions to intellectual sophistication was reading. In it, the author retold the epic Anglo-Saxon hero myth of Beowulf from the point of view of the monster the hero killed, rather than from the hero's vantage point. In so doing, he scored numerous points about the violence and intolerance of human beings and raised more profound philosophical issues. This animated feature was adapted from Gardner's book and never quite found its audience; too simplified for the literati, it was definitely not a children's feature and was not aimed at mainstream audiences. Taken on its own merits however, reviewers lamented that it deserved a better fate than the obscurity to which it was consigned. Peter Ustinov provides the voice for the beleaguered monster. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Thomas Keneally, which was in turn inspired by actual events, this drama is a shocking indictment of the racism inflicted on the indigenous people of Australia. Jimmie (Tommy Lewis) is a half-white, half-aborigine young man raised by a Methodist minister. Feeling outcast among the aborigines, Jimmie moves to the city and gets a job working for a white family. When a white serving girl at the estate becomes pregnant, everyone is convinced that Jimmie is the father; to spare the girl's honor, Jimmie marries her and is allowed to live with her on the estate. But after the child is born, everyone realizes that the father was a white man, not Jimmie; he is still willing to accept the child and stand beside his wife, but his employers now feel that he married a white girl under false pretenses, and they bar him from the estate. Forbidden to see his wife and fired without receiving his pay, Jimmie finally explodes in a fury of violent revenge. Director Fred Schepisi's original cut of this film runs 122 minutes, though it was more widely distributed in a shortened version running 108 minutes. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Government scientists develop a knockout gas, designed to peacefully quell terrorist uprisings. The gas, and its antidote, inevitably fall into the Wrong Hands, those hands belonging to a gang of crooks who plan to send all of London off to slumberland so that they can embark upon a wholesale crime spree. To prevent this, the New Avengers once again go undercover--with Purdey (Joanna Lumley) posing as a department store window mannequin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide