''Dallas Doll'' is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal A ...

black comedy-drama film starring Sandra Bernhard,

David Ngoombujarra David Ngoombujarra (27 June 1967 – 17 July 2011) was an Indigenous Australian actor of the Yamatji people. Born David Bernard Starr in Meekatharra, Western Australia, his acting career spanned over two decades from the 1980s to 2010; he won ...

Roy Billing Roy Harwood Billing (born 1947) is a New Zealand television actor, now based on Waiheke Island, New Zealand. He was brought up in Ruawai, Northland, New Zealand. Billing spent almost three decades living and working in Australia. He became w ...

, Victoria Longley,

Frank Gallacher Frank Gallacher (7 April 1943 – 23 February 2009) was a Scottish-Australian actor. Gallacher was born in Glasgow in 1943. In 1962, aged 19, he was working in London when his parents and younger sister decided to emigrate to Australia. Gallac ...

, Jake Blundell,

Rose Byrne Mary Rose Byrne (born 24 July 1979) is an Australian actress. She made her screen debut in the film ''Dallas Doll'' (1994), and continued to act in Australian film and television throughout the 1990s. She obtained her first leading film role i ...

and written and directed by Ann Turner.Scott Murray, ''Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995'', Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p34

Plot

Dallas Adair ( Sandra Bernhard) is an American consultant brought to Australia to advise on a new golf course project. On the plane from L.A. she meets Charlie Sommers (Jake Blundell), the 18-year-old son of one of her bosses when there's a near crash landing, after which Dallas moves into the Sommers bourgeois home. While living with the Sommers, Dallas begins a twisted odyssey to seduce and corrupt the family which includes seducing Charlie, then seducing his father Stephen (Frank Gallacher), a workaholic lawyer who is re-awakened by sexual desire. Dallas even seduces Stephen's frustrated wife Rosalind (Victoria Longley), where Dallas introduces Rosalind to excitement of living on edge and the female body. Only the Sommer's UFO obsessed teenage daughter Rastus (Rose Byrne), along with her pet dog Argus, are highly suspicious to Dallas's agenda. Her influence over the Sommers family secured, Dallas begins to chart her final objective by appealing to the local Mayor Tonkin, (Douglas Hedge) for assistance in setting up the golf links with her wicked charms. However, fate and destiny finally catches up to Dallas when Charlie returns from his lone spiritual quest in the desert with old scores to settle where he, Argus and a spectacular visitation conspire to cause the downfall and death of Dallas Adair.

Production

Shot in April and May 1993, the film was developed with the assistance of the Australian Film Commission and made with money from the FFC. Sandra Bernhard was imported to play the lead. Ann Turner:

"Dallas Doll" essentially came from being part of and seeing how Australians really worship experts from overseas. I've done some writing workshops where that would happen. An American is brought out - and the willingness for Australians to accept with open arms whatever fraud comes out because they're American, that's absolutely the starting point of ''Dallas Doll''."Interview with Ann Turner", ''Signis'', 16 January 1998
accessed 21 November 2012

Reception

The film was released theatrically in the United Kingdom and Germany and received some positive reviews. It was released in the United States on 23 June 1995 and had a limited theatrical run.

References

External links

*
Dallas Doll
at Oz Movies
Variety review
*http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Calendar/Film?Film=oid%3A142628
The New York Times Movies
* 1994 films Australian black comedy films Films scored by David Hirschfelder 1990s English-language films 1990s Australian films {{1990s-Australia-film-stub