Heatwave **** (1982, Judy Davis, Richard Moir, Chris Haywood, Bill Hunter, John Gregg, John Meillon) – Classic Movie Review 7202

Director Phillip Noyce’s sizzling 1982 Australian film Heatwave is based on the real life mysterious disappearance and murder of Juanita Nielsen, immediately following Donald Crombie’s earlier film inspired by the story, The Killing of Angel Street (1981). An architect takes on the controversial project of designing a housing development for a Cockney immigrant developer as a heatwave hits Sydney at Christmastime as tenants and squatters in the older houses refuse to move.

Juanita Nielsen was an activist against mass development in Sydney in the late Seventies at the time of the Builders Labourers Federation green bans against development in inner Sydney city waterside suburbs.

It stars a powerhouse cast of Judy Davis as Kate Dean, Richard Moir as Stephen West, Chris Haywood as Peter Houseman, Bill Hunter as Robert Duncan, John Gregg as Philip Lawson, John Meillon as Freddy Dwyer, Dennis Miller as Mick Davies and Carole Skinner as Mary Ford.

The subtle, intelligent, serious minded screenplay is by Phillip Noyce and Mark Rosenberg, based on the original script King’s Cross by Tim Gooding and Mark Stiles.

Heatwave is another gem of the New Australian Cinema from Noyce, who says: ‘Heatwave belongs to a different era in Australian cinema, a time when we took a lot of risks. It is like a Hollywood gangster movie except that it’s in Sydney in the 1980s. It is more complex than [my first film] Newsfront (1978) and it has a bigger cast of characters.’

He said: ‘It is the story of a working-class Protestant boy who made good. Judy Davis’s character is a middle-class Catholic girl. She, in the Catholic saintly tradition, had adopted a social cause – protector of the working class. He was forced to confront the moral implications of his own success.’

It cost Aus $1 million and earned back only Aus $267,000 at the Australian box office after missing out on awards and being nominated for two Australian Film Institute technical Awards (Editing, Sound) in 1982.

It is Noyce’s second feature after Newsfront, and is followed by Dead Calm, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Bone Collector, Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American, Salt and The Giver.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7202

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