A classic piece of Australiana. Like all Australian films of the era seemed to, it even had a foreign star! Plus cameos from established stars like Graham Kennedy.
The film differs somewhat from the book.
In the book, Harry Kelly is just another house builder like Joe Kennedy (Ed Devereaux), not the large-scale construction firm boss in the film.
Consequently we see a lot more of Mr Kelly in the film and also of his daughter Kay, right from the start where Kay is in the process of evicting Nino's magazine from the building. In the book there was no La Seconda Madre office, no cousin Leonardo, no missing thousand pounds, and therefore no eviction. In the books Nino continued to write articles for the magazine until well after he got a job working for Joe.
The scene in the cafe where Kay is trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon is where Nino first meets her in the book. (As an Italian-Australian myself I know it really is better to use a fork.)
I believe all the extra stuff referred to above was in the interest of giving Chips Rafferty (as Mr Kelly) and Clare Dunn (as Kay) much larger roles in the film than their characters had in the book.
The film differs somewhat from the book.
In the book, Harry Kelly is just another house builder like Joe Kennedy (Ed Devereaux), not the large-scale construction firm boss in the film.
Consequently we see a lot more of Mr Kelly in the film and also of his daughter Kay, right from the start where Kay is in the process of evicting Nino's magazine from the building. In the book there was no La Seconda Madre office, no cousin Leonardo, no missing thousand pounds, and therefore no eviction. In the books Nino continued to write articles for the magazine until well after he got a job working for Joe.
The scene in the cafe where Kay is trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon is where Nino first meets her in the book. (As an Italian-Australian myself I know it really is better to use a fork.)
I believe all the extra stuff referred to above was in the interest of giving Chips Rafferty (as Mr Kelly) and Clare Dunn (as Kay) much larger roles in the film than their characters had in the book.