They’re a Weird Mob *** (1966, Walter Chiari, Claire Dunne, Chips Rafferty, Alida Chelli, Ed Devereaux, Slim DeGrey, John Meillon) – Classic Movie Review 5508

Producer-director Michael Powell’s fairly enjoyable, easygoing and good-natured 1966 comedy movie of cultural misunderstandings starts off when an Italian immigrant Nino Culotta (Walter Chiari) arrives Down Under in Australia to take up a job as a journalist on his cousin’s magazine, only to find the magazine has closed.

Nino gets a job as a bricklayer, falls in love with Kay Kelly (Claire Dunne), who takes him to meet her father Harry (Chips Rafferty), who hates journalists, immigrants and bricklayers.

John O’Grady’s popular best-seller novel is transformed into a solid family entertainment with universal appeal by British director Powell (The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death), the unlikely hand behind this likeable little tale, returning to the gentler style of his earlier works after the disastrous watershed of Peeping Tom.

Amusing Italian comic Chiari (1924-1991) stands out in one of his best roles, in a 100-movie plus career that goes back to Vanità in 1946.

The screenplay is by Powell’s regular collaborator Emeric Pressburger (writing as Richard Imrie).

Also in the cast are Alida Chelli, Ed Devereaux, Slim DeGrey, John Meillon, Charles Little, Anne Haddy, Jack Allen and Red Moore.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5508

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