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Clip description
Sergeant Simmonds (Peter Cummins) is lecturing Kate (Kate Fitzpatrick) about the moral misbehaviour of the upper classes. Fiona (Jacki Weaver) defends her sister as Constable Ross (John Hargreaves) tries to find out what has to be loaded next. Inside the flat, Ross turns on both the removalist (Chris Haywood) and Kenny (Martin Harris), who’s still handcuffed to the balustrade.
Curator’s notes
The strong Australian accents, with the contrast of Chris Haywood’s London working class accent, give the film a rich localism that was still quite new in Australian cinema in the early 1970s. Williamson’s ear for Australian vernacular was one of the distinctive traits of his plays, and one of the things that made Australian audiences love his work. This scene is noticeably mobile in the way it’s directed, with moving characters and very mobile cameras. It’s the only time that the action spills out of the flat, once the police arrive there. Williamson is said to have based the play on a story told to him in a pub by a removalist.
