They're a Weird Mob

My little sister came over today and on strong recommendations from my dad, we watched an Australian movie from 1966 called "They're a Weird Mob". He built this as a predecessor to "The Castle" and I was curious enough to want to watch it.

They're a Weird Mob Movie Poster

I could see how my dad could fall in love with this one. It is about an Italian immigrant who came over by boat and getting used to the quirks of this strange world down under. This movie was made a couple of years after my dad would have made the same sea journey and had little bits of Italian in it, making it easy for him to understand it.

I didn't find it as funny as it was billed, however, there were some funny scenes and slight bits of humour, mostly centered around broken english and taking aussie slang literally.

The most interest I had is having a glimpse of Sydney from back in the day that my father immigrated.Seeing developing suburbs, the way Italians were treated, the old currency circulating, telephone switchrooms, old cars and labourers and the accents in the language were all eye openers for me. I particularly liked the panoramic camerawork of Sydney Harbour at the end of the film with a half finished Opera House - It has been there all my lifetime so it's hard to imagine a harbour without it.

The film itself fell short of expectations for my sister and I, but that may have been partly due to my dad's high appraisals. but the window into the mid 60's Australiana was well worth the effort.