image of person or book cover 8364994507436404429.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Alvin Purple single work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2008... 2008 Alvin Purple
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'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.'

Notes

  • Launched in Canberra at the Arc Cinema, National Film and Sound Archive, 26 June 2008 and in Sydney at the Chauvel Cinema, Paddington, 3 July 2008.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

[Review] Alvin Purple [and] The Piano Fincina Hopgood , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 54 2009; (p. 207-211)

— Review of Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism ; The Piano Gail Jones , 2007 single work criticism
Alvin Purple by Catherine Lumby Brian McFarlane , 2008-2009 single work review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , no. 49 2008-2009;

— Review of Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism
Actor Turns to Purple Prose Garry Maddox , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 11-12 October 2008; (p. 35)

— Review of The Naked Truth : A Life in Parts Graeme Blundell , 2008 single work autobiography ; Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism
Off the Shelf : Film Owen Richardson , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 2 August 2008; (p. 28)

— Review of Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism
Off the Shelf : Film Owen Richardson , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 2 August 2008; (p. 28)

— Review of Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism
Actor Turns to Purple Prose Garry Maddox , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 11-12 October 2008; (p. 35)

— Review of The Naked Truth : A Life in Parts Graeme Blundell , 2008 single work autobiography ; Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism
[Review] Alvin Purple [and] The Piano Fincina Hopgood , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 54 2009; (p. 207-211)

— Review of Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism ; The Piano Gail Jones , 2007 single work criticism
Alvin Purple by Catherine Lumby Brian McFarlane , 2008-2009 single work review
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , no. 49 2008-2009;

— Review of Alvin Purple Catharine Lumby , 2008 single work criticism
Last amended 27 Jul 2015 13:12:44
Subjects:
  • 1970s
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X