Bruce Kerr Movies
- 1989
The Australian Compo is a life-is-tough opus centering around college-grad Jeremy Stafford. Unleashed on the world with all sorts of wonderful notions as to how to better the lot of his fellow men, Stafford takes a job at a government unemployment-compensation office. As he dispenses "compo" to the laid-off and the fired, he begins to chafe at the bureaucracy and poor management attending his job. Before long, his idealism has been hammered into plodding conformity. Or maybe it hasn't, so keep watching. Compo serves to prove that the phrase "We are the government, and we're here to help you," doesn't fly in Australia, either. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bruce Kerr, Christopher Barry, (more)
Inspired by an epic poem by A.B. "Banjo" Patterson, The Man From Snowy River was a major step forward for the regenerated Australian film industry of the early '80s. This "down-under Western" spotlights Tom Burlinson as Jim Craig, a headstrong young man who goes to work for a powerful cattle baron. Burlinson falls in love with Jessica (Sigrid Thornton), his boss' daughter, and becomes enmeshed in a bitter land feud. Kirk Douglas has a high old time in the dual role of hard-hearted landowner Harrison and grizzled, one-legged old prospector Spur. Previously filmed in 1920, The Man From Snowy River was directed by the other George Miller, not the director of the same name who helmed Mad Max (1979). A monumental moneymaker, the film inspired a 1988 sequel, confusingly titled Return to Snowy River, Part II. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Jack Thompson, (more)
- 1981
The nine-part Australian series I Can Jump Puddles was based on a trilogy of autobiographical books by Alan Marshall: I Can Jump Puddles, This Is the Grass, and In Mine Own Heart. Crippled by polio as a youngster, Marshall managed nonetheless to pursuit a number of professions: writer, farmer, boot factory employee. During his years in Melbourne, the protagonist was even briefly mixed up with the criminal underworld, barely escaping to tell the tale. Adam Garnett and Lewis Fitz-Gerald were respectively cast as the younger and older Alan Marshall. I Can Jump Puddles originally aired in 1981. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Adam Garnett, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, (more)
- 1959
An arrogant scientist brings his fiancée back from the dead in this vintage cult horror film. Dr. Bill Cortner (Jason Evers, here billed as Herb Evers) performs medical experiments despite the trepidation of his surgeon father (Bruce Brighton); transplantation is Bill's main area of interest, but he's also had some success using electric shock to restore life to the recently deceased. When Bill causes a car crash that decapitates his fiancée, Jan Compton (Virginia Leith), he spirits her head off to his secret laboratory and keeps it alive with the help of an experimental new serum. Soon, the doctor begins scouring the dives, strip clubs, and suburban streets for an attractive woman whose body he can steal to restore his lady love to her full, ambulatory glory. Meanwhile, back at the lab, Jan grows to hate Bill for refusing to let her die. Developing telepathic powers that allow her to communicate with one of Bill's failed experiments -- a snarling creature kept locked up under the stairs -- she begins to plot her revenge. Things come to a head when Bill returns to the lab with his intended victim: a bitter, disfigured, man-hating figure model (Adele Lamont). The promotional tagline for The Brain That Wouldn't Die was "Alive...without a body...fed by an unspeakable horror from hell!" The film helped provide the inspiration for '80s horror/comedy director Frank Henenlotter's Frankenhooker and Basket Case 2. The former includes a decapitated woman restored to life by her lover, while the latter features both a cameo from Brain star Jason Evers and another character who looks like the twin brother of the monster under the stairs. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jason Evers
