A new surf club started on an Australian beach struggles through its infancy.A new surf club started on an Australian beach struggles through its infancy.A new surf club started on an Australian beach struggles through its infancy.
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Sun, sea, surf and skullduggery...
Between 1971 and 1975, on any given rain-sodden Friday afternoon (and there were many of them), when it seemed just too cruel to send a herd of under 12s outside to chase a lace-up football around a field, the teacher taking games would announce to us, "OK kids, you're staying in and watching The Bungala Boys." I must have watched it a dozen times, but the thrill of seeing it never seemed to pale. There we were on a grey, wet winters afternoon in London staring at what seemed to be a sun-soaked slice of paradise.
The school only possessed one film that wasn't a documentary about rubber production or human biology, and The Bungala Boys was it. It was the Emergency-Keep-The-Kids-Occupied film, and you only really needed one, it was really the excitement engendered by a change of routine that kept us transfixed on the flickering image; it didn't matter that it was always the same film. Maybe though, the teachers were more canny than that - what better film to show 40 children from a grim council estate on a miserable wet afternoon than one set in an Australian surfing community (I seem to recall that the plot involves skullduggery in a life-saving competition).
For years I thought that the Bungala Boys had to be a famous piece of Australian cinema, but in adulthood every Australian I met looked perplexed when I mentioned it. It was a CFF production and so maybe it was never even shown in Australia... all along it was simply intended as a way to cheer up the rained-in school children of Britain.
I haven't seen it since the age of 11 so I can't really say whether it's even a good children's film (I have a feeling it's not bad... for its day), but it will definitely always have a special, sun-kissed, brightly-coloured place in my film-watching heart.
The school only possessed one film that wasn't a documentary about rubber production or human biology, and The Bungala Boys was it. It was the Emergency-Keep-The-Kids-Occupied film, and you only really needed one, it was really the excitement engendered by a change of routine that kept us transfixed on the flickering image; it didn't matter that it was always the same film. Maybe though, the teachers were more canny than that - what better film to show 40 children from a grim council estate on a miserable wet afternoon than one set in an Australian surfing community (I seem to recall that the plot involves skullduggery in a life-saving competition).
For years I thought that the Bungala Boys had to be a famous piece of Australian cinema, but in adulthood every Australian I met looked perplexed when I mentioned it. It was a CFF production and so maybe it was never even shown in Australia... all along it was simply intended as a way to cheer up the rained-in school children of Britain.
I haven't seen it since the age of 11 so I can't really say whether it's even a good children's film (I have a feeling it's not bad... for its day), but it will definitely always have a special, sun-kissed, brightly-coloured place in my film-watching heart.
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- travis_iii
- Aug 2, 2010
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- Runtime58 minutes
- Color
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