The Set

A version of this article appeared in The Age, March 23, 2007.

Remembered as Australia's first feature-length "gay film," or at least one of our earliest attempts at sexploitation, Frank Brittain's The Set (1970) is a movie that could only have been made in this country at the moment just before the injection of funding into the local film industry, when almost anything seemed possible.

Sexual liberation, too, was in the air – but despite its "daring" content, The Set was hardly a document of the counterculture. The script by the actor Roger Ward was adapted from his own massive, still unpublished "sociological" novel of Australian life in the mid-1960s, which in turn drew on his memories of the Adelaide theatre. Recently arrived from New York, Brittain changed the background to Sydney high society and focused on the gay subplots in a bid for maximum shock value.

A charming if shifty character, Brittain scoured the night spots of Kings Cross for drag performers and the mansions of Double Bay for investors, keeping the script under wraps and describing the project variously as a "beautiful love story" and an Australian answer to La Dolce Vita (1960). Scandal was anticipated, or encouraged. Though the gay content raised some hackles, the biggest story was the nudity of Hazel Phillips, then known as the wholesome host of the chat show Girl Talk.

Writing for The Age, Colin Bennett bluntly labelled The Set "the worst film ever made". Seen today, it displays a delightful technical incompetence that can't entirely be ascribed to a lack of filmmaking infrastructure (Brittain had never directed before, but was working with an experienced television crew). Lines are fluffed, sound levels vary, and hamfisted "lyrical" montages alternate with stagy interior scenes where the actors clutch their foreheads and declaim melodramatically.

Chief among the exotic specimens in Brittain's fishbowl is Paul (Sean McEuan), a youthful, floppy-haired dilettante whose arty aspirations and British accent place him at odds with his beer-swilling ocker dad. Determined to make it on his own, Paul heads for the city, where he encounters the interior design expert Marie Rosefield (Brenda Senders) who recognises his eye for French porcelain and takes him on as her protégé.

A year passes in the space of a cut, and soon Marie is sponsoring Paul's debut in high society. "It's my first party ever," he confesses, as a portly dowager murders a snatch of Gilbert and Sullivan and a pointy-bearded artist gets his name wrong. After one too many drinks, Marie turns on Paul: "I've given you years of my time and my talent! Make love to me!"

When he rejects her advances, she storms out and the party turns into a decorous orgy, with shimmying buttocks and bosoms thrust at the camera. Next day, news of Marie's car accident is brought by her camp offsider Theo (Tracy Lee): "She was killed...poor bitch." Paul is still reeling when his new friend senses an opportunity. "I think you need a drink. My place is very close by."

Back at Theo's apartment, a still wilder party proves to be in full swing, enlivened by a drag queen in a feather boa who lounges on a piano and croons a risqué torch song. Paul is enjoying the show, until the number ends and the performer's wig comes off. He recoils in horror: "Oh God...you're a man."

It's a life-changing moment. The following morning, our hero stands before the full-length mirror in Theo's bedroom, fondling the crucifix around his neck and grieving over his lost innocence. Shortly thereafter, he winds up sharing a bed with Tony (Rod Mullinar) a brooding, cross-eyed "rich boy" who views himself as a ladykiller but eventually decides he doesn't mind trying out a gay relationship "for kicks".

From scene to scene, it's unclear whether The Set views homosexuality principally as an immature lifestyle to be overcome or a form of eccentricity to be celebrated. The scale-model theatrical "set" designed by Paul and Tony proves to be a spinning diorama that might represent the earth as seen from the moon; as the planets turn in their orbits, so too do the characters move from one love affair to another with disorientating speed.

Equally, the alignment of stars that led to the production of The Set was short-lived. Ward continued to work as an actor over subsequent decades, with notable roles in Mad Max (1979) and Turkey Shoot (1982); Brittain was last heard of in Vatican City, as an official filmmaker for the Catholic Church. The final word should go to The Set's producer David Hannay, who urges that the film be viewed as a "groundbreaking social document and a pioneering Oz classic, never losing sight of its innate campness". Modern audiences should hardly need the hint.