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Clip description
Jack Simpson (Mick Molloy) has been ordered to turn up to play bowls, or lose his membership in the club. Club president Len (Frank Wilson) thinks there’s some mistake, because he’s never seen Simpson before. Team skipper Stan (Bill Hunter) initiates Simpson into the game’s finer points – none of which sink in – although Simpson is pleased to discover a sport in which smoking is welcome.
Curator’s notes
A lovely entrance by Molloy, scratching his belly and wearing stained cricket whites. The thud of surprise is made audible as the bowls drop on the green – a neatly-timed visual joke that’s followed by Molloy’s crack about, well, his crack. He uses vulgarity throughout the film as a kind of smokescreen for the film’s deeper ideas. That is part of what made it popular with some audiences, and not with others. It’s a highly developed comic script – the writers just don’t want you to dwell on that as you laugh.
