Original Australian Daybill Poster Don's Party
Daybill Poster.Don’s Party is a 1976 film written by playwright David Williamson and was directed by Bruce Beresford and produced by Phillip Adams. John Hargreaves plays Don Henderson with Jeanie Drynan as Don's wife Kath. Ray Barrett plays Mal, Don's mentor, and Pat Bishop is his wife. Graham Kennedy plays Mack, Graeme Blundell is the repressed Australian Liberal Party supporter and Veronica Lang his obedient wife. Kerry (Candy Raymond) is the attractive and assertive artist and Evan (Kit Taylor) is her uptight and possessive partner. Cooley played by Harold Hopkins (Phillip Adams wanted to cast Paul Hogan as Cooley but the actor declined) comes with his young girlfriend Susan (Clare Binney). In the film the setting is relocated to the suburb of Westleigh in the northern suburbs of Sydney. The film also deviates from the stage version by increasing the level of profanity and contains full frontal nudity and sex scenes. Pat Bishop won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Veronica Lang won the AFI Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Bruce Beresford won the Best Direction award, David Williamson won the Best screenplay award and the film won the edit and sound award. Phillip Adams originally distributed the film himself. In the end, Don's Party grossed $871,000 at the box office in Australia which is equivalent to $4,503,070 in 2009 dollars making it a commercial success.
