Until the 1970s, film censorship in Australia was a secretive affair and decisions were rarely challenged by distributors.
John B. Murray’s THE NAKED BUNYIP (1970) was different, with the filmmakers deciding to expose and draw attention to the cuts that were being demanded.
The Naked Bunyip
Directed by John B. Murray / 1970 / Australia / IMDb
The Chief Censor, Richard Prowse, was made aware of the film before it began shooting.
February 16, 1970
CP – Are you likely to encounter censorship difficulties?JBM – We hope not The Chief Censor has been advised in detail of the project and the basically serious minded approach to the subject. Being mainly documentary I could only film what actually happens. The nudity shouldn’t offend anyone. It depends on their thinking of course. And then there’s the satire. Here goes.
CP – What are your views on censorship?
JBM – I can’t make up my mind on the overall question of censorship. I am not satisfied with the, arguments either for or against. I would shudder from the responsibility of having to decide this question for the Nation. Fortunately, I’m not in that position. I believe that thorough research by a highly competent authority on an international level should be undertaken and its findings made known. At the moment we are trying to decide on no facts. In the meantime, let’s not miss the opportunity to educate the young and bring about a natural acceptance of the body and its physical functions, together with a respect for love and trust, the so-called higher human emotions. Which reminds me, if you are talking about censorship, violence must also be discussed as well as sex.
– John B. Murray interview
– Cinema Papers No. 6
Now for the rating
In July 1970, a 5940-feet (165:00) 16mm print of THE NAKED BUNYIP was submitted to the Film Censorship Board.
February 2006
– The Genesis of The Naked Bunyip
I produced the first answer-print of the original cut of THE NAKED BUNYIP with a low-cost electronic soundtrack to allow for possible censorship changes, rather than outlay funds on a final optical sound negative at this early stage. I had introduced myself to Prowse by telephone and, as soon as I received the answer print from Supreme Film Laboratories in Paddington, Sydney, I sent it to him on 3 July 1970, together with a completed Application Form for the Registration of a Film and an accompanying letter in which I set out the aims of the work.
– John B. Murray
– article @ sensesofcinema.com
Three months later, the Censorship Board replied with a list of thirty cuts, of approximately five minutes.
The Films Board of Review dismissed an appeal against the censorship in September 1970.
Alert the press
John B. Murray decided to have a media screening of the uncut version where he could highlight the thought process of the Censorship Board.
February 2006
– The Genesis of The Naked Bunyip
I had prepared the theatre by setting up lamps on both sides of the screen with wires trailing to a switchbox, where I was to sit. One lamp was covered in red gel, the other with green. The lights were facing directly at the audience. During the screening, I turned on the red lamp to indicate image that the censor demanded be removed, and the green lamp to indicate dialogue that was to be deleted. I switched on both lamps together for the duration of image and dialogue cuts. It was the first opportunity provided in Australia for social commentators, columnists and writers on film and the other arts to learn what the censors regarded as offensive and unacceptable for cinema exhibition.
– John B. Murray
– article @ sensesofcinema.com
Publicise the censorship
Murray decided not to remove the audio and images. Instead, he drew attention to them with a siren and sketches of a Bunyip.
February 2006
– The Genesis of The Naked Bunyip
I had been advised that the film could not be screened until the offending sound and image footage was “removed”. My interpretation of the relevant Act suggested that we could not be forced to physically “remove” any film footage. I reasoned: if it is left to run with the scenes blacked out and the sound untouched where image cuts were demanded, and if the soundtrack were to be bleeped while the images were left to be seen for dialogue only cuts, no objection could be sustained when the film was re-submitted for approval. Second, by this action the censor’s demands would become an integral part of a work that we were to sub-title, “A serious study of sex and censorship”.
– John B. Murray
– article @ sensesofcinema.com
This version of THE NAKED BUNYIP was passed with a ‘Suitable only for Adults’ rating and released theatrically.
The above quotes are taken from the excellent article that John B. Murray wrote for SENSES OF CINEMA No. 38.
Three sections deal with the censorship of the film.
What did the censor think? – Covers the rating process and the Censorship Board’s reaction.
What did the media think of what the censor thought? – Covers the uncut media screenings used to drum up publicity and highlight Australia’s draconian censorship standards.
Chipps fly – Covers Don Chipp’s (Liberal) views on the provocative way the censorship issue had been used to promote the film.
TV premiere
On 3 May 1972, THE NAKED BUNYIP was screened on Sydney’s ATN Channel 7 at 8.30 pm.
The week before, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD reported that ‘It will be shown without cuts’. However, in his review of the TV year in THE BULLETIN, Don Anderson confirmed ‘ten minutes were excised’.
The Melbourne screening that took place three weeks later had some extra censorship.
24 May, 1972
A former prostitute who tried to prevent the television screening of THE NAKED BUNYIP was given an undertaking yesterday, she would not be identified in the film.The woman had taken out a Supreme Court writ to prevent the screening on Channel 7 tonight because she was concerned for her I5-year-old son.
She claimed that her son’s life would become unbearable if the film were shown on television.
Yesterday Mr. Michael Shatin for the woman, told Mr. Justice McInerney in Chambers the matter had been settled.
He said Channel 7 and Southern Cross Films Pty. Ltd. had undertaken that the woman’s face would not be identified.
In an affidavit the woman said she had been a prostitute for 30 years.
She said for the 10 years until 1970 she had used her home for prostitution while her son was at school.
Last August she was gaoled for living on the earnings of prostitution.
The woman said in 1969 or 1970 she agreed to be interviewed for the film THE NAKED BUNYIP if it would not be televised.
– ‘Bunyip’ TV film won’t identify woman
– theage.com.au
Other TV screenings took place throughout the 1970s.
Back after 35 years – Uncut & M-rated
THE NAKED BUNYIP remained unseen until Umbrella Entertainment issued an extras-packed DVD in 2005.
It was passed with an M (Sexual references, Adult themes, Nudity) rating in February of that year.
The DVD presents the 138:50 modified version that played theatrically in 1970. A drawing of a Bunyip appears over any visuals that required removal, and a siren masks audio cuts. The censored material appears as an extra on the disc.
Umbrella went on to rerelease it as part of a six-disc set titled OZPLOITATION VOLUME 1.
Censored footage
Umbrella’s DVD includes a 06:43 extra of previously censored audio and visual scenes.
Life Class (Visual) – Full frontal nudity.
Lesbians (Visual) – Kissing.
Lesbians (Visual and Audio) – In bed talking about one another.
Carlotta (Visual) – Topless shot.
Abortion (Audio) – Description of backyard abortions.
Gang Rape (Audio) – Men talking in a car.
Doctor (Audio) – Talking about anal and oral sex.
Shane Harrison reports.
Unfortunately, not all the censored scenes are shown in the 06:43 extra. After the visit to Les Girls, the film takes us to the iconic Pink Pussycat striptease club. Five different strippers are shown, and the cartoon Bunyip flashes up several times, censoring a total of 00:41. The offending footage is not revealed in the extras but their context and what the Bunyip is doing over each deletion helps identify what was considered offensive.
Censored at 112:10 by 00:03 – Close up of first stripper’s g-stringed rear as she tightens and relaxes her butt muscles to the beat.
Censored at 112:34 by 00:05 – Second stripper bumping and grinding while topless.
Censored at 112:55 by 00:05 – Close up of third stripper, tassel twirling.
Censored at 113:12 by 00:02 – Third stripper bumping and grinding.
Censored at 113:28 by 00:02 – Fourth stripper bumping and grinding
Censored at 113:55 by 00:04 – Fifth stripper wearing a long dress, thrusting her crotch at the audience.
Censored at 114:07 by 00:02 – Fifth stripper rubbing a chain up the front of her dress, around the area of her crotch.
Censored at 114:10 by 00:03 – Fifth stripper continues rubbing the chain up and down her front.
Censored at 114:24 by 00:04 – Close up of fifth stripper’s g-stringed rear as she tightens and relaxes her butt muscles to the beat.
Censored at 114:46 by 00:04 – Fifth stripper rubbing her hands down to her crotch.
Censored at 114:51 by 00:05 – Close up of fifth stripper popping her suspenders open. The masking image is a close-up of the Bunyip’s face, so I am not fully sure about this one.
Censored at 115:09 by 00:05 – Fifth stripper on her back rubbing two large feathers between her legs.
An important document
Umbrella Entertainment’s DVD release of this censor baiting film is highly recommended. It contains a detailed example of the state of Australian film censorship in the year before the introduction of the R-rating.
IN A FUNNY SORT OF WAY (2005) is an extra on the disc that covers how the film was modified.
2005
– 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.
– In a Funny Sort of Way
2005
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 R.J. 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.
– John B. Murray, Director & Producer
– In a Funny Sort of Way
2005
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.
– Graeme Blundell, Actor
– In a Funny Sort of Way
2005
– 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.
– In a Funny Sort of Way
2005
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.
– John B. Murray, Director & Producer
– In a Funny Sort of Way
2005
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.
– Phillip Adams, Producer
– In a Funny Sort of Way