Letter from Steve Turner:  "Adam's Woman - An Australian Viewpoint"

Adam’s Woman – An Australian Viewpoint

As a collector of rare, and out-of-print Australian film, I have found Adam’s Woman to be an enigma. When searching for rare Australian film, it is common to find that it might never have been released on video (or dvd) in this country. Such searches might then take me to a country where I can find a copy, and I’ve had to buy copies of Australian-made movies from the USA, Canada, Germany, England, Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium.

In all of my searches, over many years, I’ve never found a genuine vhs copy of Adam’s Woman in any country, let alone my own. I’m aware of there being two copies in private hands within Australia. One is in my own collection, and the other is in the collection of an associate. Both copies came from fellow collectors in the United States. My attempts at discovering why this movie was never released to the public for private ownership have proven fruitless.

Adam’s Woman, starring Beau Bridges, Jane Merrow, James Booth and John Mills was shot in New South Wales, Australia in 1969. The location was near the coastal town of NOWRA, South Coast NSW, in the Shoalhaven Valley. The river, which you will notice in some scenes, is the Shoalhaven.

Nowra and the villages around it have today a population of around 25,000 people. The area is about 100 miles south of Sydney, the state’s capital – about a two-hour leisurely drive, and the Shoalhaven Valley is a popular tourist destination, offering the pleasures of the coast, surrounded by wilderness area.

The film premiered in 1970 at the Center Cinema in Canberra, Australia’s capital. It was also shown in the United States and England, following which, it seems to have slipped into obscurity. Many Australians would tell you that they have never heard of it, but for an avid collector, to have a copy is to have found one of the hardest to find of Australian films.

Adam’s Woman was also the debut movie for a young John Waters, who had an unaccredited minor part in the movie, but who has gone on to be acclaimed as one of Australia’s most respected and recognized film and theatre actors.

Beau Bridges has been quoted as saying that he enjoyed his time in Australia making the film. He returned to these shores in 1978, along with his father Lloyd to make the Australian film Shimmering Light. With the theme of the movie based around surfing, Mark Warren, the Australian World surfing champion, presented Beau, a keen surfer himself, with a surfboard – a replica of the one on which he’d won the World Championship.

Steve Turner

Copyright 2009