Film Censorship: The Naked Bunyip (1970)

 

 

 

 

The Naked Bunyip

Directed by John B. Murray / 1970 / Australia / IMDb

When THE NAKED BUNYIP was submitted to the Censorship Board in 1970, the introduction of the R-rating was still over a year away. This period is not yet covered on our site, though we hope one day to document the full horror of those years.

In 1970, the Censorship Board demanded cuts to THE NAKED BUNYIP before they would award it a rating. In May 1970, the Review Board dismissed an appeal by distributor. The 16mm print that was submitted ran 5940-feet. A censored version was eventually passed for theatrical release.

 

 

M-rated after 35 years

THE NAKED BUNYIP remained unseen until Umbrella Entertainment released an extras-packed DVD. It was passed with an M (Sexual references, Adult themes, Nudity) rating in February 2005.

THE NAKED BUNYIP is presented on the DVD in the 138:50 1970 censor-approved version. Here a picture of a naked bunyip appears over any visuals that required cutting, and a siren masks audio cuts.

The problem parts of the film are shown again in the deleted scenes extra. This runs 06:43.

They censored scenes were as follows:

 

 

THE NAKED BUNYIP and the Censorship Board

We highly recommend that you track down Umbrella Entertainment's DVD release of this censor baiting film. It contains a detailed example of the state of Australian film censorship prior to the introduction of the R-rating in November 1971.

 

The story of how THE NAKED BUNYIP was cut is covered on the Umbrella DVD in the documentary titled, IN A FUNNY SORT OF WAY.

These are a few of the censorship related quotes.

 

PHILLIP ADAMS (Producer)

In the 1960's in this wide brown land. We had about the most repressive censorship in the entire Western world, with the possible exception of Northern Island. Every other book was banned, the most mild innocuous little art film from Sweden was being scrapped by the censor. And it was a fairly oppressive time for all the arts in terms of what you could say, and what you couldn't say.

So that was one of the impulses with THE NAKED BUNYIP, was to stretch the envelope on matters of sexuality, particularly as Kinsey reports are coming out. Sexuality is starting to be debated, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. But there was another issue, the film industry was as dead as sexuality.

Now we always knew that the result would get into trouble with the censor, one hoped for this intensely, and indeed it did.

 

 

John B. Murray (Director/Producer)

I know that I had been very provocative because I had organised a screening at the Palais, which is a huge cinema in St Kilda, near Melbourne. I'd put a coloured light on one side of the screen, and another coloured light on the other. I had wires trailing up to the lounge, where I had a box so I could switch one off or the other on. And invited key figures in the media, and there were about 150 journalists, and others from radio, print media, and television came. And I ran the film in its original form right through, and turned on the light when the censor demanded an audio cut, and the other when he demanded an image cut. And for the first time in Australia they could see exactly how the censor reacted to material that, in quotes, was questionable. And we got, I wasn't thinking so much of getting editorial coverage out of it, we got huge coverage, and it helped the film tremendously.

But I was really more interested in opening up the subject, and letting them know how it was regarded. I was asked by Mr RJ Prowse, who was the Commonwealth Censor at that time, to come to Sydney after I'd written him a letter detailing what I was trying to achieve in handling these subjects in the way I did. And I had a good talk to him, and then he organised for me to sit with members of his censorship board in the office in Sydney to see the film.

 

 

Graeme Blundell (Actor)

And there was some kind of basement in the centre of Sydney, this sin city place. And he'd been interrogated as the film was shown by these censorship people. I think there was about a dozen of them sitting around. I always had this impression of Barry Humphries kind of gargoyles, and Les Patterson types, dibbling, drooling, and masturbating in the corner, with a fag hanging out of one part of the mouth, and a can of beer going in the other.

(Adopts Les Patterson voice) "See you've gotta cut that, rawhh, look at her, rawhh, no cut those out, rawhh leave those"

This is the impression one got. This sort of phantasmagoric set of characters that had descended upon the film to rip it apart, as they did on anything that those kind of people deemed offensive.

 

 

PHILLIP ADAMS (Producer)

Now, John Murray discovered a fascinating truth, that the act that forced us to comply with the censors ruling, did not require us to invisibly mend. There was nothing in the act that said we had to put all the bits together and hide the cuts.

 

 

John B Murray (Director/Producer)

And I realised that whilst he was demanding that these pieces or sections should be deleted from the film. If I left them in, and blacked them out, and made them part of the film itself, attitudes to sex and censorship, then he really couldn't force me to cut the footage out. And then I told Phillip about that and he immediately suggested Peter Russell-Clark do some sketches of a bunyip, and we could put that on, which I did, and supered them over the black, to show the nature of the material that was cut.

The naked bunyip is a mythical animal, and I thought that pretty much fitted us in Australia in the late 60's. And the naked bunyip is reported to have said to someone "I don't know what I am, can someone please tell me?". And I thought that was the position regarding sex and censorship. Our attitudes to them, and I wanted to strip it bare, that is, open the subject up for discussion.

 

 

PHILLIP ADAMS (Producer)

So when we opened at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, the biggest cinema in the country, packed to the rafters, the most popular parts of the film were the parts that were missing. Think about that, the parts the audience really adored, weren't there. The censor was off his face about it. He got very, very angry, threatened us with all sorts of legal problems.

I remember Barry Humphries decided to have a press conference, to aggravate the situation further. So Barry gets the media there. And I have to reveal at this point that Mr Prowse, the Chief Censor, was, well he reminded me on the one legged Tarzan, he had one arm. Perhaps is was from over zealous film cutting. And Barry told the assembled throng that Mr Prowse would give his right arm to be here today, or Mr Prowse told me this straight from the shoulder. Now these kind of ironic comments do not endear ourselves to the Chief Censor. So the situation got nastier and nastier and nastier. But for us it was a godsend.

We could hardly afford to make the film. I think I managed to raise, I think about $40,000 from a couple of friends of mine who were in the used car business. Bob Jane, and his brother Bill. And we certainly couldn't afford to promote, we couldn't afford to advertise. But with Russell Prowse's help, with all his agitations about the films sins and shortcomings, the thing just took off.

It was mildly cathartic for Australia. Because this showdown with Russell Prowse, the showdown with the censoring. I think began, or accelerated the process that brought the whole censorship structure in Australia tumbling down. What happened was the censorship system fell over from absurdity, a bit like the collapse of the Kremlin, or the Berlin Wall. And almost overnight Australia had the most progressive censorship in the world. We went from one extreme to another. And in that change of attitude, that paradigm shift, I think THE NAKED BUNYIP played a small, but modest part.

 

 

John B. Murray on THE NAKED BUNYIP

Further reminiscences by John B. Murray can be found at The Genesis of the Naked Bunyip on The Senses of Cinema site.

The three sections dealing with censorship are:

What did the censor think?
Covers the rating process, and the Censorship Board's reaction to the film.

What did the Media Think of What the Censor Thought?
Covers the uncut media screenings used to drum up publicity about the film and censorship.

Chipps Fly
Covers Don Chipp's views on the provocative way the censorship issue had been used to promote the film.

 

The Naked Bunyip - Umbrella Entertainment [au] DVD 1The Naked Bunyip - Umbrella Entertainment [au] DVD 2

 

 

Next Films: Night of Fear (1972)