The Firm Man

Weird, weird, weird. John Duigan's first credit as writer-director is one of those films that seems destined to redefine 'obscurity,' yet somehow, several other motion pictures over the years (from multiple countries) seem to have been influenced by it stylistically and thematically. The nearly incoherent, oddball premise has something to do with an Aussie executive named Gerald Baxter, who drops out socially and mentally, taking a job for a top secret firm where he plays with toys all day long. Throughout the picture, he is followed by two men in trenchcoats (one of whom is Duigan regular Bruce Spence, of "The Year My Voice Broke" and the reprehensible "Dimboola") who spy on him from around corners, fly a biplane overhead, etc. The motion picture makes absolutely no sense -- somehow, Baxter and others eventually wind up at a beach, where a naked hippie smoking a joint sits on a rock, appearing and disappearing randomly.

I saw this on a Steenbeck at the National Museum of Film, Television, and Radio in Sydney. (A STEENBECK. That's how obscure this is).