Pacific Banana

It is difficult to know who in its day would have been the audience for this tits-and-bums comedy in the Alvin Purple manner.

With the same star (Graeme Blundell) and writer (Alan Hopgood (who also plays Sir Harry Blandings) as that film, Pacific Banana which tells a 'story' about a pair of Australian pilots working for a small South Pacific airline appeared too long after the initial run of similar early '70s "ocker"comedies to win kudos for any role in re-invigorating the Australian film industry, and is in any case largely set in French Polynesia and lacks the distinctively Aussie charm of its forbears (two of the stars were British imports: Robin Stewart, who would be familiar to many as Mike from the TV series Bless This House, and Luan Peters, who played an Australian in an episode of Fawlty Towers.

The film is is too tame sexually to gratify any but the prurient although had Lamond et. al. gone all out and made a full-on porno and maintained the same technical quality, today it would no doubt be regarded as a masterpiece of the genre.

DVD Extras: This release is one of a series put out by the AV Channel called the "Sexy Oz Retro Collection", the other releases being The True Story of Eskimo Nell and a double-feature of Fantasm and Fantasm Comes Again. The transfer is good quality although the colour is little too saturated. Extras include an interview featurette with Lamond, Hopgood and Deborah Gray talking up the film and another with Lamond reminiscing on his career ; Gray and Luan Peters sing a pop ditty, 'Trouble', there are provocative stills galleries of the cast along with the original theatrical trailer and trailers for other alumni of the "Sexy Oz" series.

Available from: Umbrella Entertainment

 

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