Mar 29, 2024 Last Updated 9:27 PM, Feb 2, 2024

Producers & Distributors of High Quality Australian Film and Television

We've got quality not quantity. We break the ice for others to follow.

On this site you will find details of our past film production, direct sales info, 

who we are, what we've got in development plus bits about our heros.

HOLMEWOOD
gets the green light

Shooting is underway on our new feature documentary HOLMEWOOD. The film tells the story of a small and very unusual school in England in the 1960s filled with children from all round the world where race, religion and class had no meaning. It was multi cultural before the word was invented. We've tracked a number of the boys scattered now, in far flung corners, to find out what effect that extraordinary environment had on the rest of their lives. Are there lessons we can learn in the 21st century about how we educate children? In a time of rising populism, racism and skin deep nationalism HOLMEWOOD is a powerful addition to a very contemporary debate. We're currently shooting in Vancouver, next stop up-state New York, then London, Madrid and Accra.

A Smart St. Taster

Here's a taster of a few of the films we have on DVD.  They're high quality mainly Australian and hard to find.   They're all available from our catalogue

 

 

Terry Southern

Category: Our Heroes - People we think are worth their salt

Terry Southern - Screen Writer, Absurdist and Cultural Seer.The Hippest Guy The The Planet 

Screen Writer, Absurdist and Cultural Seer.
The Hippest Guy On The The Planet

Terry Southern  1924 - 1995

The Hippest Guy On The Planet 

Just after 10.30 on the morning of September 11, 2001 as planes flew into the World Trade Centre the world entered a moment which could have been created by the late great screenwriter Terry Southern.  The U.S. was under attack and high over the polar waste a B52 of Strategic Air Command would have received a coded message. The pilot would have opened a safe and extracted a sealed envelope. The crew would have been instructed to arm their weapons and move to attack positions. The United States was under attack and it’s military were preparing to hit back. But at who? The political hierarchy and it's military must have retreated to fortified bunkers in case it was the beginning of a nuclear attack. These events must have happened and happened probably the way they did in Terry Southern’s great script for Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece.   We're betting this sequence in the clip below happened on September 11, 2001.       


Southern had the knack.  He wrote scripts that summed up the time. The New York Times called him the “hippest guy on the planet”. From Easy Rider, to Candy, Barbarella, The Magic Christian and Dr Strangelove - Southern’s razor sharp writing and incisive understanding of absurdity made his films eccentric crowd pleasers. Making a comedy about nuclear devastation just after the Cuban Missile crisis when that devastation was a real possibility takes some doing. The possibility of trivialising the concept is ever present but Southern treads the tight rope with panache. The humour opens the subject up and the laughs are truly black.

The Magic Christian is probably one of his best.  Sir Guy Grand finds a homeless guy and instructs him in the ways of money and power so that he can become Sir Guy’s heir.  Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr play the leads in the most quietly mad assessment of Western capitalism ever committed to film. It’s a rare gem that many people haven’t heard of and fewer seen.  It’s hard to find, but worth the effort.

Southern’s wildest piece, as yet unproduced, is “Blue Movie”. It all starts with an argument at a Hollywood party between the world's leading auteur and a studio producer about how to make the greatest porn film ever.  The Producer challenges the auteur to make it.  And the director sets about casting the biggest stars to play in his porn film. A hilarious, scabrous take on the film industry. Names are changed but it’s easy to identify everyone in the cast. Hollywood’s never had the courage to take it on but we’re negotiating to get the rights. Terry Southern, a hero of ours.

For more info on Terry Southern check this, a site run by his son Nile. 

Here's a link to our other Heroes

 

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CD                              DVD

ARCHIVE SALES

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For the last 45 years we've shot films all round the world on a wide variety of subjects. From sport to politics and art we have a unique library of moving and still images. We make these available to filmmakers and private individuals for use in other films or just to own personally.  In particular our extraordinary range of surveillance films and photographs are a unique resource.

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For HD movies or hand printed stills on acid free paper contact us: 
enquiries@smartstreetfilms.com.au 

In Development

Looted treasure, IRA terror, Dandies, Winston Churchill, Zombies, show biz scoundrels and aunt Mabel's millions.  

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LOOTED
We've got a wide ranging slate in development.READ MORE

Heroes

    Terry Southern
                      writer

terry southern          
    The Hippest Guy On The Planet

Dr. Strangelove, Candy, Magic Christian, Easyrider you name it Terry Southern had a profound influence on American cinema and our understanding of the absurdity of life.

READ MORE