image of person or book cover 9171056662880819528.jpg
Screen cap from promotional trailer
form y separately published work icon Alvin Purple single work   film/TV   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 1973... 1973 Alvin Purple
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Alvin is an average man, except that women find him irresistible. The only woman that Alvin really wants is his platonic friend Tina, but he appears to feel no sexual desire for her. He follows her to a convent, where he gets a job as gardener.

A 'sexist sex comedy', made during the peak of the feminist debate in Australia, Alvin Purple reverses the feminist polemic of men oppressing women by having its protagonist pursued by a constant stream of predatory women. He is victimised even more when he refuses sex. Paul Byrnes (Australian Screen) notes that 'the film was [also] reacting against entrenched puritanical attitudes in Australian society. To some it was prurient farce; to others, it was exposing the repression that produced such prurience.'

Tom O'Regan notes in 'Cinema Oz: The Ocker Films' (1989) that Alvin's 'ordinariness seems irresistible to women. The comedy is based on incongruity. Sex is rendered as slapstick. Jokes are at the expense of bastions of hypocrisy - psychiatry, the press and the law. The would-be recessive hero is the object of male sexual fantasy - sex without responsibility - a fantasy with which women could also apparently identify.'

[Source: Paul Byrnes, Tom O'Regan, and Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper]

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Hexagon Productions , 1973 .
      image of person or book cover 9171056662880819528.jpg
      Screen cap from promotional trailer
      Link: U8861Australian Screen (e-clips) (Sighted 2/9/2010)
      Extent: 95 min.p.
      Description: Colour
      Series: form y separately published work icon The 'Alvin Purple' Films Australia : 1973-1984 7579192 1973 series - publisher film/TV

      A series of films centring on Alvin Purple and, later, his son Melvin, who share the trait of being irresistible to women.

      Alvin Purple and Alvin Rides Again were made back-to-back and by the same creative team: Melvin, Son of Alvin was made significantly later with a different writer and director.

      Number in series: 1

Works about this Work

Alvin Purple at 50 : How ‘boobs and Pubes’ Led Australian Screen’s Sexual (and Sexist) Revolution Michelle Arrow , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 19 December 2023;

'Fifty years ago this week, the first blockbuster of the Australian new wave hit Australian cinemas. Directed by Tim Burstall and starring Graeme Blundell, Alvin Purple was a bawdy sex comedy about an unprepossessing young man who was irresistible to women.' (Introduction)          

Masculinity, Victimhood and National Identity in 1970s Australian Ocker Cinema Chelsea Barnett , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 20 no. 1 2023; (p. 118-136)

'Historians have long understood ocker cinema in terms of a more distinct and assertive national identity in Whitlam’s 1970s, yet only recently have begun to consider the context of the women’s liberation movement unfolding at the time. Adding to this emerging body of scholarship, this article reads the rise of ocker cinema both in the context of, and as a response to, second-wave feminism. Turning to the films Stork (1971), The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) and Alvin Purple (1973), this article argues that the cinematic articulation of the ocker in the 1970s not only asserted a masculinist national identity, but also positioned this national masculinity as the victim of (and in danger from) threatening feminist challenges.' (Publication abstract)

A Future of Uncertainty: School, Class, Ethnicity, Gender and Power in Australian Television’s ‘chalk-operas’ of the 1970s David Nichols , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: History Australia , vol. 20 no. 1 2023; (p. 98-117)

'High school education underwent a radical change in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, commensurate with the major changes experienced within other institutions and social environments. This article is an exploration of Australian television’s use of the schoolroom within drama during the 1970s, with a focus on three productions: 290 half-hour episodes of Class of ’74/’75, 39 hour-long instalments of Glenview High and a pilot for Jackson High, a one-hour show that was not developed but which proved to be a forerunner for Glenview High. The article demonstrates that such shows provide insight into attitudes to both schooling and to teenage life in Australia in the 1970s, as well as being in themselves important and engaging examples of early Australian television drama.' (Publication abstract)

“Smash Sexist Movies” : Gender, Culture and Ocker Cinema in 1970s Australia Michelle Arrow , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 46 no. 2 2022; (p. 181-195)

'The 1970s is often characterised as the decade of Australia’s “new nationalism”, expressed most potently in a wave of cultural activity nurtured by government funding. The figure of the ocker was central to this new nationalism, particularly in film. The ocker, a contemporary masculine archetype devoted to beer, sex and swearing, was a star of Australian films such as The Adventures of Barry McKenzieAlvin PurplePetersen and Don’s Party. Yet few scholars have considered the ocker in a gendered context, remarkable when we consider that while the ocker films were being produced, the women’s liberation movement was mounting a radical challenge to Australian cultural, social and political norms. What new understandings of 1970s society and culture might result if we read the new nationalist ocker and women’s liberation in the same frame? This article examines the relationship between ocker culture and women’s liberation in the 1970s. It argues that we can read new nationalist popular culture as a site of gendered cultural contest, with a particular focus on feminist responses to ocker culture, including Alvin Purple, and a reading of the film Petersen.' (Publication abstract)

Alvin Purple Alexandra Heller-Nicholas , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Metro Magazine , Summer vol. 191 no. 2017; (p. 108-191)
When Alvin Purple was released in 1973, I was glad that it proved popular but never, for a moment, thought it was of any other significance. Since then, several writers, including Catherine Lumby, caused me to rethink my snobbish perspective on the film. Now Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' insightful essays gives further grounds for reappraisal, placing the film in dual contexts of 'then' and 'now', and providing persuasive arguments for considering this light-hearted comic piece on a commentary on changing sexual and gender mores, and as a phenomenon of the Australian film revival. It's easy to forget how largely dormant the local film industry had been until the early 1970s, and Alvin Purple's popularity should make us try to understand the basis of this. The current essay makes a serious contribution to this process. – Brian McFarlaneBrian McFarlane, Series Editor.
y separately published work icon Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2008 Z1508682 2008 single work criticism

'One of the seminal films of the 1970s, Alvin Purple depicts Alvin's struggles with his irresistibility to women - from his school days and time as a waterbed salesman to his short-lived career as a sex therapist. The 'definitive ocker comedy', Alvin Purple survived a critical mauling and went on to become the most commercially successful Australian film of the 1970s.

'Catharine Lumby takes a fresh look at the film, the social and political era in which it was made and the forces that fuelled its success. She revisits claims that the movie is little more than an exercise in sexploitation and argues that the film is far more complex than its detractors have allowed.' (Publisher's blurb)

According to McFarlane 'Lumby situates this discourse on Alvin as a representation of female desire in the 1970s context of a feminist polemics which made itself felt variously in the high-level argumentation of a Germaine Greer and in more populist vein in the pages of Cleo magazine.'

Mirror on Our Past Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 14-15 June 2008; (p. 21)
Catharine Lumby recalls the year in which Alvin Purple first hit Australia's cinema screens.
y separately published work icon The Naked Truth : A Life in Parts Graeme Blundell , Sydney : Hachette Livre Australia , 2008 Z1522931 2008 single work autobiography

'The Naked Truth is the very personal story of Graeme Blundell - Australia's first sex icon (by chance), a founder of the Melbourne's theatre groups La Mama and Playbox, which showed audiences that actors could speak in Australian English, and now an acclaimed writer and journalist.

'From his a childhood in Melbourne's working-class outer suburbs Graeme passionately followed his dreams to become a central part of Australian popular culture. He has worked in films, TV and theatre. The hit movie Alvin Purple made him Australia's first permissive pin-up, and he became a symbol of the early seventies - an era everyone still wants to be part of.

'Actor, director, producer, biographer, critic and journalist, Blundell established theatre companies and was there when they closed, watched the film industry through its many renaissances, and television as it became an addictive digital environment. In The Naked Truth Blundell writes about Australian life in the 40s, 50s and on with the insight of someone who was always part of the action - whether he wanted to be or not.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Not Quite Hollywood : The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! Paul Harris , Collingwood : Madman Entertainment , 2008 Z1636275 2008 single work criticism (taught in 1 units)

Not Quite Hollywood is the story of Ozploitation.

More explicit, violent and energetic than anything out of Hollywood, Aussie genre movies such as Alvin Purple, The Man From Hong Kong, Patrick, Mad Max and Turkey Shoot presented a unique take on established cinematic conventions.

In England, Italy and the grindhouses and Drive-ins of North America, audiences applauded our homegrown marauding revheads with their brutish cars; our sprnky well-stacked heroines and our stunts - unparalleled in their quality and extreme danger!

Busting with outrageous anecdotes, trivia and graphic poster art - and including isights from key cast, crew and fans - including Quentin Tarantino - this is the wild, untold story of an era when Aussie cinema got its gear off and showed the world a full-frontal explosion of boobs, pubes, tubes...and even a little kung fu!

y separately published work icon Alvin Purple Laura Keenan , Perth : Centre for Research in Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) , 2008 Z1666345 2008 single work criticism Research undertaken by a student of the Centre for Culture and Communication (Murdoch University) into Alvin Purple (1973). Includes aspects relating to the production phase, critical reception, principal performers and production crew, references and a synopsis
Last amended 10 Jul 2014 15:49:23
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