THE COOLANGATTA GOLD (1984)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Igor Auzins

SCREENWRITER: Peter Schreck (developed from an idea by Max Oldfield, based on a story by Ted Robinson & Peter Schreck)

FILM STARS: Joss McWilliam, Nick Tate, Colin Friels, Josephine Smulders, Robyn Nevin, Grant Kenny, Melanie Day, Melissa Jaffer, Wilbur Wilde, Kate Mailman

COUNTRY: Australia

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Richard Butler

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Budget Books

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1984

COUNTRY: Australia

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1984

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Sports Drama

WORDS: I’m not sure what to make of this. I recall when this came out. It was a big event. All Australian made films were big events at the time, this one doubly so because it was made in my home State, Queensland..

In Australia, Queensland isn’t the bride, or the bridesmaid, just a guest at  a (remote) table. The insecurity, perhaps, causes the State to do stupid things … like putting their hand up up for the 2032 Olympics, which Brisbane (the capital of Queensland) won by default … no one else was in the race.

I digress, though, my antipathy to marginal sports (ie: those played by only a few nations) is well known and long standing.

So, recalling when this film came out doesn’t mean I took any interest in it. Because it was a “sports” movie I took no notice of it, The fact it was about an “ironman” surf race made it even less interesting to me. I even vaguely recall getting it mixed up with some Australian crime movie at the time, perhaps Goodbye Paradise (1983) also filmed on the Gold Coast.

When I did get around to watching it I was surprised. I’m not saying the film was great but it had enough to keep me (half) interested.

Writer Peter Schreck and director Igor Auzins had worked together successfully on the Australian film We of the Never Never (1982), and no doubt influenced by the critical and commercial success of Chariots of Fire (1981) they decided to collaborate on another project. Why not, both films are about running and competition, and feature on beaches … and other stuff.

Coolangatta Gold, about a big (fictional, at the time) race, injects many subplots into its narrative … failed dreams of parents, toxic masculinity, son proving himself to father, sibling rivalry versus another “plotpack” which almost takes up as much screen time – boy meets girl dancer, girl has dreams of her own, girl must decide between career and boy.

So, it is “East of Eden” meets “Flashdance”.

There is another subplot of the “hero” trying to make it as a band manager, but that one is relegated to the sidelines.

There is a lot going on and not much going on.

The 80s stylings are pure corn but the failed father pushing his sons (a symptom of what is now known as “toxic masculinity” apparently), specifically to win the title he never could win, is well done. The relationship between the kids, and the favouritism the dad, like some of (ste) roided Willy Loman, shows one son is held together by Colin Friels (always good) as the older son and Nick Tate as the father. Though not a world I knew, some of this rings true as these fathers ( I recall) did (and do) exist, especially those who defined “success” as success in sports.

Otherwise, there is 80s music, including a band with Wilbur Wilde of Ol’ 55 and Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons (Australian bands of the 1970s) and television on vocals, 80s fashion, 80s bikinis, some 80s sex and a lot of scenery of Queensland’s Gold Coast which only reminds us how Hicksville it was (it didn’t seem so at the time).

The movie hits all the tropes about sport, training and relationships that may help or hinder the protagonist. There is even a Rocky-esque “working class” training montage with our sportsmen utilising their work on a banana farm to train and push each other on.
It’s watchable though perhaps only enjoyable if you lived through (survived) Australia in the 1980s.

Surprisingly, the film performed disappointingly at the box office which halted the careers of the director, writer and male and female leads. Colin Friels and Nick Tate, and stage darling Robyn Nevin went on to bigger and better.

The book is a straight novelisation. I’m unlikely to read it … why would I when I can read Steinbeck for the angst or the puff piece in the Sunday supplement for the against all odds sport story?

NOTES

• The film spawned a sporting event. The Coolangatta Gold, which was a fictional event created for the film. it is now one of the premier events in the sport of Ironman (surf lifesaving), organised by Surf Life Saving Australia.  The story goes: “In 1984, Peter Schrek was writing a movie featuring the talents of ironman legend Grant Kenny, about two brothers competing for their father’s love. Needing a dramatic climax for the movie, Schrek was sitting on a Gold Coast beach when he came up with the idea of racing from Surfers Paradise, all the way down to Coolangatta, and back up again. Schrek ran up to someone on the beach, and after explaining the course, asked if he would do it, to which the person replied, “Hell no”. Schreck then asked if he would do it for $20,000 prize money, to which the person replied, “Hell Yeah””. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coolangatta_Gold. For the filming of the race, the producers decided to run The Coolangatta Gold as an actual event, rather than film set up shots. Many well-known ironmen at the time competed, but it was won by 18-year-old Guy Leech, from Manly who on it the following year as well. It then stopped, was revived in 1991 and 1992, then stopped again, but has been run just about every year since 2005.
• Interestingly, Australian champion ironman, Grant Kenny, plays himself in the film (though he didn’t participate in the Coolangatta Gold race made up for the film). and Nick Tate’s father character is, in part, obsessed with his son beating Kenny as he didn’t beat Kenny’s father, Hayden Kenny, in the early 1960s. Hayden Kenny won the very first Open Ironman Championship of Australia (at Coolangatta) though in 1966 not the early 60s.
• Josephine Smulders from Victoria was a ballerina from the Victorian College of the Arts School of Dance and in 1983 was accepted into the Australian Ballet Company. While filming a dancing scene for the film in December she suffered a back injury. She continued to feel pain in her back and in November 1984 performed for the Australian Ballet Company for the last time at a performance at the Sydney Opera House. She tried to return to dancing over the next few years but the pain in her back prevented her from doing so. In 1992 she sued the film’s producers for damages because of the injury. At trial, after medical evidence, the trial judge was of the view that the injury was a temporary exacerbation of a degenerative condition which had existed for some time prior to filming and that her continuing symptoms were caused by progressive degeneration. This was her only film.

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TRAILER

FILM SCENES FROM THE NOVELISATION