by Stephen Vagg
Age of Consent, Michael Powell’s final full length feature film as director, isn’t one of his highly regarded, and even those associated with it complained about its flaws, but the film has charm, and after an uncertain beginning, gets into its groove.
The film is based on a 1938 novel by Norman Lindsay, which Michael Powell discovered when filming They’re a Weird Mob in Australia. Powell had such a good time out here, he tried to get financing for a number of other Australian projects, including adaptations of Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding and Arthur Upfield’s Boney novels – the one he managed to get going was Age of Consent, due to the enthusiasm of James Mason, who agreed to produce and star. They got the film rights off Australian actor-writer-producer Michael Pate, who’d tried to make a movie out of Age of Consent throughout the sixties (at one stage, Barbara Eden was going to star) but had no luck; Pate stayed on the project as Associate Producer, and another Australian, Peter Yeldham wrote the script. Finance came from Australian and British sources, with Columbia Studios investing a chunk, and the movie was shot in 1968, with location work in Brisbane and on the Great Barrier Reef, and studio work in Sydney.
It’s not hard to see the appeal of Age of Consent for James Mason – he got to play a famous, handsome successful artist, who moves to an island paradise, gets fawned over by several groupies (sleeping with one), and is “re-invigorated” by a frequently naked underage muse (none other than Helen Mirren in her first movie). It’s less typical of Michael Powell’s other work, although it did give him a chance to play with colour, ruminate on art and work with Mason (who was going to be the lead in Powell’s I Know Where I’m Going but dropped out).
Age of Consent is quite a racy film – easily Powell’s most explicitly sexy one, even more so than Black Narcissus (1947). Mason is in bed with a topless Clarissa Kaye and when they have sex, Powell cuts to the bed shaking and squeaking; Mirren is forever running around without a bra and is often naked – twice at Mason’s request (once swimming, the other posing in the water with a spear).
Age of Consent has never enjoyed the best reputation, in part because Columbia cut the film and added a terrible music score; there’s also some over acting from the support cast, it takes a while to get used to Mason’s accent, and the sexual politics are, ahem, of their time. The movie doesn’t have a strong narrative – Mason lives on an island, gets Mirren to pose, an old mate turns up and pinches some money off him, Mirren’s drunken aunt falls off a cliff, Mason finishes his pictures, gets his money back, then he and Mirren get together. The last bit doesn’t feel too convincing – neither character expresses that much interest in each other during the movie, Mirren seems mostly attracted to his out of town glamour and Mason to her body, youth and availability. (Though the fact that Mirren seems like a grown woman minimises the inherent dodginess of this plot.)
But the film has life and warmth and we enjoyed it, especially the re-released copy which puts back the original score. It reminded us of a TV show like Sea Change – handsome leads, pretty views, wacky locals and a comic dog. The locations are beautiful – Australia looks so gorgeous in its late ‘60s films, with that sparse city and super blue ocean and deserted beaches. Powell directs with feeling, Mason and Mirren are charismatic, there’s a fascinating support cast including a young Harold Hopkins, plus views of Brisbane, and it’s all easy going, laid-back and Queensland-ish. It’s absolutely worth seeing.
The movie was a decent sized hit in Australia but did not “travel”, despite the presence of Mason – maybe audiences weren’t that excited to see him as a stud in 1969 (a younger actor in this part, like Albert Finney or Sean Connery, might’ve made all the difference). But the film was life changing for him, since it was how he met Clarissa Kaye who became his second and final wife (indeed, the account of them meeting ends Mason’s memoir). Powell tried to get finance for a film of The Tempest with Mason but had no luck, in part because of the box office disappointment of Age of Consent. He only made one more film, the one-hour The Boy Who Turned Yellow. Age of Consent isn’t a bad feature for him to go out on – not a masterpiece but stronger than Honeymoon or The Queen’s Guards. We wonder what would have happened had he emigrated to Australia.
