The Delinquents * (1989, Kylie Minogue, Charlie Schlatter, Bruno Lawrence) – Classic Movie Review 9789

Director Chris Thomson’s 1989 romantic drama The Delinquents stars Kylie Minogue, who strips off, uses a four-letter word and does a bit of acting in her ill-fated movie début as Lola, an Australian teenager hot for nice diminutive American boy Brownie (Charlie Schlatter).

The under-age duo fall in love in a sleepy Aussie backwater town in the 1950s, her mother tries to separate them, Kylie gets pregnant, and then, when mum (Angela Punch McGregor) takes Kylie away to the big city for an abortion, Charlie runs off to sea.

The attractive stars do well enough for us to wish they had not been let down by a cheesy story, dialogue packed with every cliché in the book and a couple of hilariously bad supporting performances.

The Delinquents may have been a chart-topper for Kylie’s older teenage fans, but it is a turnoff for most others.

The screenplay by Mac Gudgeon and Clayton Frohman is based on Criena Rohan’s novel.

Also in the cast are Bruno Lawrence as the Bosun, Todd Boyce, Desirée Smith, Melissa Jaffer, Lynette Curran, Lyn Treadgold, Duncan Wass, Rosemary Harris, Yvonne Hooper and Jonathan Hardy.

Following its premiere in Australia and glitzy, happy but near-disastrous one at the Warner cinema in Leicester Square, London, the film never had a theatrical release in the United States.