Warren Perso Skit

Kindly transcribed by Dave Guthrie: ‘Took me friggen 90 minutes! Ok, I got the 6 hours of Late Show DVD footage to do now. Wish me luck.’

Warren (played by Tony Martin): Look, the problem with the Australian film industry is, it’s run by a bunch of egg-head poofter types, up at the film commission… your Phillip Adamses and so forth, who are always telling you what your film’s gotta have. It’s gotta have a certain number of local actors. It’s gotta have cultural content. It’s gotta have a decent script and so on. Well, I got by pretty nicely without any of these things for 20 years and look where it’s got me.

Warren: Australian films today are all about f**kin’ losers, they’re all about Gallipoli, or Burke and Wills, or Breaker Morant… I remember the days when Australian films were about winners. Blokes like Alvin Purple.

Warren: See, anyone can make an arty intellectual ‘The Last Days of Chez Nous’ flick that no bastard wants to see. I could do it. You give me a week with a camera, a couple of topless chicks, an open-top sports car and a shitload of cash and I will give you Out of Africa. But, if you want something that’s actually going to put bums on seats, something of quality like, say, The Clinic, then that’s going to take a little longer. That’s going to take a bit of sensitivity…and that’s where I come in. fart S’cuse I.

Judith (voice over): Warren Perso has been making Australian feature films since the early 70’s…

Warren (on phone): Look…look Hirlick, I’ve seen the rushes and believe me it’s not more dialogue this film needs…it’s norgs and plenty of them. Look, just fix it all right or you can go back to f**kin’ E-Street. Jesus.

Warren: We got this, uh, young bloke filming a picture for me in the Philippines and uh, we are laboring under, uh, creative differences. He sees it as a kind of John-Luc Godard stroke Antoni-oni stroke Kurosawa think piece where as I see it more as a tit-flick. So, there is a bit of friction there.

Judith: If we could talk about your early work, you began by making, I suppose, exploitation pictures.

Warren: Yeah…sure and I make no apologies for that Judith. Those films were, for their day, very successful. Films like Confession of a Bloke With a Really Big Donger! Uh…Suck Me To Death the film where I brought together the characters of Dracula and Emmanuel. You might recall the poster line uhhh ‘She went down for the Count’. I was doing some pretty innovative stuff in those days. People forget I was the first person in this country to make a film in Norgarama. See, you might call them ‘exploitation’ films, I prefer to see them as ‘explorations’ of the Australian psyche.

Judith: Yeah, but at the same time you must admit they were pretty crass and offensive.

Warren: Well…what are you referring to?

Judith: What about 1974’s Filipino Furburger?

Warren:Look, Filipino Furburger, in its original script, was a pretty subtle, sophisticated comedy of manners. Now, I was under a lot of pressure from distributors, drive-in owners, so sure, it did end up being a bit of a tit-feast, but a pretty classy one I think you will agree and what a dream cast: Blundell uhh Ferrier, Penny, Abigail.

Judith: One critic described it as a work of a crude, insensitive, puerile, misogynistic, cretinous, infantile, philistine.

Warren: Yeah but I’m more than just that. Jesus, I don’t know where this insensitive thing comes from. Steve-o, can you get that fat chick to bring me another bottle of homo-water?

Judith(Voice Over): But in 1975, Perso gained a certain respectability, with the movie version of David Williamson’s biggest stage hit.

(Ron’s Barney)
Rob(Jack): Hey Ron, mind if I screw your missus HAHAHA
Ron: Bugger off, you’re not a socialist HAHAHA (Mick: OHHHH!)
Rob(Jack): Oh…you can talk you Liberal bloody poofter.
Tom: Hey, hey Ron’s no poofter. I’ve got photos of him screwing my missus. hahahah
Mick: Yeah? Is that right? I thought he was screwing your misses Jack. (Mick alone) hahaha
Rob(Jack): You weak bastard. You wouldn’t say that if Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister.
Mick: Oh you don’t think so
Rob: NO!
Mick: You don’t think so!
Rob: NO!
Ron: Hey steady on fellows, steady on.
Santo: Sorry Ron, they only had light beers left.
Crowd: Awww Starts throwing things at him…Mick hits him with a chair
Ron: Bloodly Liberals.

Warren: Yeah I think a lot of people were surprised by the subtlety of that piece. They didn’t expect that from me.

Judith: Now your next film in 1978, The Bermagui Bronze, was a multi-million dollar flop. What went wrong?

Warren: Look, I don’t know. We had a terrific ad campaign.

Voice Over (VO): The Passion…

Rob(Joe): Listen to me Barry, listen to me. Listen to me Barry. I’m an iron-man, your brother’s an iron-man, your mum’s an iron-man. We’re all iron-men. And what have we got in common? We’ve all bagged The Bermagui Bronze! And now it’s your turn! Go out there and come third! Come third like a real Australian athlete!

VO: The Excitement…

Tom(Jock): Joe, we just got the test results from the institute. They reckon Barry might come second…or even worse…win.
Rob(Joe): Bugger the institute Jock, bugger them. Barry’s my son. And if I say he can win the bronze, he bloodly well can.

VO: The Romance…

Jane(Bev): Joe, you’ll have to choose. It’s either me or the Bermagui Bronze.

Rob(Joe): Listen Bev. I’m not just doing this for me and Barry…I’m doing this for everyone in this big, brown, flat, mysterious, crazy country who knows what it means to come third for Australia.

VO: The Bermagui Bronze…

Judith: David Stratton writing in The Australian described it as uh…utterly shithouse.

Warren: Oh yeah, well his just being anti.

Judith:Now, it was after this you disappeared for a few years.

Warren:Yeah, that’s when I moved to France.

Judith:Escaping your Creditors?

Warren: No look hang on…firstly, let me just say one thing: the film industry here is f**ked. Apart from the odd visionary like your Warrick Capper, it’s a shot bird. But in France, they understand people like me. They understand that sure, I’m a film maker, a craftsman, sure I’m a business man, but hey, I’m also an artist. I am one, Judith, who worships at the pimple of cinema. And that’s why over there I was able to get the finance to make my, to-date, only genuine art film: French Chicks in the Nuddy.

Judith: Which has never been released in this country.

Warren: Not as yet, no. But uh, I am in the process of stitching up a distribution deal with a mob in Canberra. Uh caballero video I think they’re called. A very classy outfit.

Judith: Now, on your return you embarked on your biggest disaster.

Warren: deep breath yeah look, this is what happen. I wanted to make a big budget movie about a great Australian explorer. Now I concede I may have chosen the wrong one.

VO: Strezelecki! A story of courage and determination as big as Australia itself.

Rob: I’m telling you Strezelecki it’s madness! No-one’s ever conducted an extensive geological study of the Bathurst and lower Gippsland region and lived to tell the tale.

Warren:Yeah I don’t think the public was really ready for Strezelecki. In fact, I don’t think they ever will be.

Judith: How then do you explain your follow up?

Warren: Well, I thought that there was still a great picture in this genre waiting to be made, but, in hindsight, maybe we should have waited a bit longer before coming out with Sturt.

VO: Sturt! Another story of courage and determination as big as Australia itself.

Rob: I’m telling you Sturt it’s insane! No-one’s ever undertaken a comprehensive study of the New South Wales inland river system and survived!

Warren: Sturt was a good film…but it was no Strezelecki.

Judith: What about your third Australian explorers epic?

Warren: Again, possibly a miscalculation.

VO: Mangles!

Rob: I’m telling you Alvi it’s crazy! (Judith Voice Over) No-one’s ever attempted an entire documentary series with that shirt on.

Judith(Voice Over): With the failure of his explorers’ trilogy, Perso has returned to the kind of film that has made him famous. Production has just commenced on his latest ‘Kelvin, son of Melvin, son of Alvin.’

Warren: You are f**king kidding me Allan, you are f**king kidding. You know we need a big American name to get the Yanks on board. Jesus. Mr. T’s pulled out.

Allan: His doing a fellow on the fair stuff for six months.

Warren: Ok ok, here’s what we do. Go back to Leath Garret’s people and give them whatever he wants. Whatever he wants. Jesus.

Judith(Voice Over): And so, the old master is back at work on a movie he hopes will herald a return to the style of film making that made the Australian cinema what it is today.

Warren:Now, this is the opening sequence, where Kelvin Purple is being persuade by a throng of sexy chicks. As you can see, we secure the services of Santo Cilauro in the lead. Makes a change of pace from that intellectual bullshit he does on the ABC. Here’s Abigail coming out of the shop, the double take, and there’s the money shot there. Now, what do you think Judith? Do you think we should go with uh say this sound effect here*horn sound*…or, option B, this sound here. Boing Yeah, well you see these are the creative choices I’m forced to make everyday. No rest for an artist.