“The Honourable Wally Norman” had the honour of being the opening film at the 50th Sydney Film Festival in 2003. It is the final film in a month of Australian movies shown during October. It is a very Australian film about mucking around and taking the mickey out of each other. It is mainly about the election to Parliament of a member for the federal seat of Givens Head. It opens with an entirely different kind of race, also traditional to the municipality-goats competing to win the Givens Head Country Cup. It is not only in Botswana that people love their goats!
Wally Norman (Kevin Harrington) is a foreman at a meat works in a rural South Australian town, who loves his wife, son and daughter more and more every day. [Warning, don’t try to say the next two names too quickly or you might learn something about Australian humour.] Election fever has arrived and the conservative Total Country Party, represented by F. Ken Oats (Shaun Micallef) is being challenged by the Australian People’s Party and a bungling 30-year veteran of politics, Willy Norman (Alan Cassell).
The APP sends Myles Greenstreet (Nathaniel Davison) to Givens Head to manage the campaign, because as Givens Head goes, so goes the nation. With the meatworks closed, and being told to retrain as “IT Professionals”, Givens Head is a “little town that did”-as everything it was known for has collapsed.
“The Honourable Wally Norman” is a cutting satire of party politics and corruption at the highest levels. The film grovels in all the machinations of political leaders out to maintain power at whatever cost. The revelations or what can go on across parties are quite extraordinary.
Before the campaign can really get going, the capitalist owners of the meatworks decide to lockout all the workers in preparation for a thorough post-election mechanisation and automation. The usually skullduggery results in not only the workers losing their jobs, but also their benefits. Who along the way gets all these millions is part of the game.
Another mix up caused by a last minute submission of the nomination form, finds Wally Norman declared the candidate for the APP.
Wally is groomed by Myles and Willy how to make speeches, still he always faints as he cannot face crowds. When he tries to follow his briefing instructions, he becomes inarticulate and tongue-tied. The political reporter for the radio station, Rebecca Jane Thompson (Melissa Madden Gray) takes obscene pleasure in tripping Wally up. His wife becomes concerned about his loser behaviour, and says to him, that there is “Only one Wally, where is he?”
Eventually, with the help of his pet goat, who eats Wally’s speech prepared by Willy, does Wally begin to “tell it as it is”, and say things that make sense. The speech that transforms his race is made at a Mosquitoe (Big Muzzle) Park, where the proprietor plays the whine of muzzles though his speakers keep people slapping. Wally suddenly begins to become a “Man of the people”. What happens next is still not what you would expect, or is it?
“The Honourable Wally Norman” is one hour and 24 minutes long. It is in colour and in Australian. The director is Ted Emery. Emery’s first film was “The Craic” (1999). The script is by Andrew Jones and Rick Kalowski. The cinematographer is David Foreman. The editor is Stephen Evans. The music is by Jim Conway.
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