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[birds twittering]
[kookaburra laughing]
[birdsong]
[gentle music]
[kookaburras laughing]
[engine starts up]
[Delvene Delaney] Love is made of many magical memories.
[kookaburra laughing]
For 46 years, I made magical memories with John,
the love of my life,
on this beautiful land.
When we lose a loved one,
we're left with a heart full of memories.
We pack those memories into boxes...
..but sometimes we choose to reopen them
because you never know what you might find.
[film reel whirring]
[upbeat rock music]
-[indistinct chatter on set] -[crew member] And action!
[Delvene] It was just an infectiously good time.
We cared for each other and we had each other's backs.
The chemistry was palpable.
There was so much love on set.
For nearly 60 years,
John and Paul were business partners,
creative collaborators
and the very best of mates.
Two great Aussie blokes.
And at their peak, they made an iconic movie.
Michael J 'Crocodile' Dundee.
Two beers, Ide.
One for me and one for me mate.
[Delvene] Crocodile Dundee helped define
Australia's friendly identity on a global scale,
and it's still loved by millions.
[Walter] I'm sorry if that frightened you, Miss.
Uh, you see, it's stuffed.
Him and me both, Wal.
[rhythmic film score plays]
[Delvene] But, recently, we nearly lost it forever.
The original negative was badly damaged.
[tense music]
To save the film, we had to restore it.
Victoria and I had to find all the elements
for the restoration process.
And in doing that,
opening John's boxes took on a much bigger purpose.
More than 200,000 individual frames
and millions of tiny flickers were delicately restored.
The result is stunning.
[soft, wondrous music]
In John's boxes was a treasure trove.
Not only were there memories of our two successful hotels
and some very funny television shows,
but there was the business side of the film
that someone had to attend to.
And that someone became me.
Okay. Do you want to see what's in this with me?
[Victoria] Yeah, I do.
[Delvene] Together with Victoria,
we found all sorts of incredible things.
Rusty, old reels...
..storyboards,
scribbled-on scripts...
..transparencies
and so many photographs.
Oh!
Aw, mates.
[Delvene] This legacy was worth preserving,
not only for my husband, John,
but it's my legacy too,
to show our grandchildren what their grandmum got up to...
..and their granddad.
Ahh!
[Delvene] John's precious archive
reminded me of all the magical moments
making Crocodile Dundee.
The fun on set...
[tap-dances]
[imitates animal call]
-[indistinct chatter on set] -[laughs]
[Delvene] ..working with an excellent crew,
the best in the business.
I wondered why Croc was so successful,
why it became such an iconic film.
And why do so many people still love it so much?
I wanted to go back
to see to where it all began with John and Paul,
to see where those first sparks of magic happened.
I couldn't wait to see my old mate Paul.
[Delvene] So I just... I'm using the old mother's spits.
Oh, it's just spit and lick, is it?
And I've just had a vanilla slice.
[both laugh]
-[ironically] Oh, good. -It's really sticky!
I'll have ants crawling round my head. Jesus, Delly.
You won't have any bits sticking up, though.
[both chuckle]
Doesn't matter.
[funky music]
[Paul Hogan] I was a rigger on the Harbour Bridge
and fortunately John Cornell came along at the right moment.
He was, like, the London editor of WA Newspapers
at, like, 22 or something,
and so he was far more worldly than I could imagine.
But we just hit it off.
He was a bit of a larrikin too. Changed my life.
[John Cornell] I was producing A Current Affair's program,
the top current affairs program down there,
and I, in fact, had an idea that we needed
sort of a verbal cartoonist
in this current affairs program,
the equivalent of a newspaper cartoonist,
just to lighten it up a bit,
because news is usually bad news.
And... one of our reporters saw him on this talent quest.
[voiceover] It's Australia's New Faces.
[Paul] I went on New Faces.
[voiceover] ..in Sydney, Terry Dear!
I went on on a dare as a tap-dancing knife thrower
to take the mickey out of it,
and the switchboard lit up.
You know, and they said it burst into flames.
And so we tried him out as this verbal cartoonist
and he just... that was it, you know?
He just became an instant overnight success.
Hey, love. What do you think of daylight saving?
[mimics woman] Daylight saving? Oh, I think it's marvellous.
I have three kiddies and my family use it all the time.
So I still worked on the bridge,
then swing by Channel Nine,
walk into the backyard in front of a camera,
do two minutes, give me some money, off I'd go.
Here's a caper for getting into the races. Now watch this.
Here's the gateman guarding the gate where you get out.
See? Now always walk backwards.
And they're never too sure which way you're going then.
Sidling along like this, mate.
Oh, excuse me, mate. Just coming out.
Yeah, done all me dough in the first race.
You know? Might as well go home.
Hello? Another quid here.
I might as well go back inside and see if I can invest that.
That's the way age beats inflation.
John was smart enough to realise
there seemed to be a lot more people watching on a Friday
when Paul did his piece on a weekly basis
than were watching at the start of the show.
So it was clear to him
that Australians were liking and loving him.
And that was a very big show.
The back of the Nine News and A Current Affair -
would've been getting a couple of million viewers.
-Hello, Mrs Universe. -Hello, Paul. Miss Universe.
[Paul] I was doing one of me two-minute spots
on A Current Affair
and I said, "I know what I want to talk about.
"I need a mate that's a bit dopier than me, though."
And John used to do a bad impression
of Marlon Brando in The Godfather,
and it really sort of made me laugh.
Thus, Strop was born. He became my dopey offsider.
[whimsical music plays] ♪ My love is ♪
♪ Mmm, mmm Taller than the tallest tree ♪
♪ Mmm, mmm Deeper than the deep blue sea ♪
[Paul] It's funny, 'cause he played it.
That's what's so unusual about him.
He was a good-looking guy and very smart,
but he was quite happy to play this dopey,
distorted-faced virgin on television, you know.
So there was no vanity involved whatsoever,
In here, cobber. It's me old mate Strop.
G'day, mate. Singers, eh?
Hello, viewers, me and Hoges abroad overseas.
Good stuff, eh?
This is the happiest moment of my life.
He was the brains of the outfit.
Right from the start, John said, you know,
"We're going into show business.
"You do the show, I'll do the business.
"All those crazy thoughts you have, put 'em down on paper."
And, well... he was right.
They didn't know what else to do with me.
They were mumbling about, "Oh, maybe have a quiz show
"and have him as the compere or something?"
But then John said, "No, you've got to have your own show."
[crew member] R30-25, The Paul Hogan Special,
replay to be advised.
[soaring orchestral theme music plays]
[audience cheering and whistling]
[cheering, whistling continue]
[cheering, whistling cease]
-[music ends] -G'day.
If you're wondering why I'm dolled up
like a sore toe tonight
instead of wearing me usual gear,
it's because the control board
has banned me usual gear from the show.
You see, they come to rehearsal and they found out
that when I sit on a stool like this,
the people in the first three rows of the studio audience
and anyone at home laying on the floor could see straight up
-the leg of me shorts. -[laughter]
I'd been working in television for about 20 years
before I met them -
you know, right from moving scenery around
to doing a lot of very major specials
in Tonight Shows, et cetera.
Well, one day when I was at work
at Channel Nine in Melbourne,
I got a telephone call from Kerry Packer,
and he said, "Do you know John Cornell?"
I said, "No, I don't."
He said, "Well, they want to work with you."
And as a result of that,
that was when they moved from Channel Seven to Channel Nine,
so, you know, it was on for anything, really.
Good evening, viewers.
-Good evening, viewers. -Good evening, viewers.
[drum roll]
[intro theme music plays]
[audience cheer and applaud]
[soaring orchestral theme music plays]
[voiceover] Stuntman extraordinaire Leo Wanker
risks his life as he takes on the wall of death.
The Wanker family have been involved in stunt work now
for five generations,
and it is my hope that one day people will say,
"There goes Leo, the greatest Wanker of all."
[audience laughter]
[audience cheer and applaud]
No one drove it mainstream and blew it up like Paul blew it up
and The Paul Hogan Show blew it up.
-You want a bit of toast, son? -[man] Thanks, mate.
[audience tittering]
[audience roaring with laughter]
[David Gyngell] The Paul Hogan Show was
such must-watch television.
And the data tells you it's must-watched.
There's probably never been anything
so large across the spectrum
that ticked every box of humour, fun, larrikinism.
Australia.
Welcome to the show that tells it like it isn't.
[audience chuckling]
But it ought to be.
[Peter Faiman] I loved Paul's stand-ups.
He always did an intro to the show -
about three or four minutes -
and he really wrapped up complex ideas
that were topical at the time
into very simple language.
Evening, viewers. [clears throat]
We are on the threshold of a new era in television.
Violence, sex and dirty stuff
is under censorship attack in America.
He had an ability to really distil current issues
into something that was very, very funny.
Television will be so sterile
you'll be able to heal wounds, just stand in front of it.
[Peter] He and I used to have a lot of fun
with him staying in character.
So once he was dressed and came dressed,
I couldn't refer to him as anything else.
And that was part of the fun that he and I had.
[audience tittering]
[audience laughing]
I absolutely loved Strop.
I thought he was, and is, absolutely fabulous.
Breaker, breaker, breaker,
this is the old... honeysuckle kisser.
[audience laughing]
Hoges was doing 90% of the funny stuff.
John would roll in with 10% of the funny stuff,
but John was driving it all the way.
Erm, a dash of tomato sauce.
[audience groaning and tittering]
Raw egg.
[audience groaning, retching]
And, erm... an oyster, mate.
[audience groaning]
Then-- Hold it.
-Me secret ingredient. -I get it. Go on.
Stir with a spoon dipped in Vegemite.
[Paul] I know this, mate. The old gag, right?
We stir it up, you tip it down the sink
and you won't have a blocked drain for six months.
-Right? -[audience laughing]
No, mate, no.
You drink it.
[audience groaning]
[moans]
We'd get to the end of a roll through a sketch
and Hoges would go, "Yeah, that'll do."
And John would say, "Nah, that won't do.
"We're doing more. We've got to keep going.
"We've got to build it. We've got to improve it.
"We've really got to take it somewhere else."
Oh, excuse me,
I've just been out there, um, shelling the peas
and fabulolling the frilly things, what we sheilas wear.
[audience laughing]
[man clears throat]
This is your wife?
-Yeah. -[audience laughing]
I discovered Delvene. [laughs]
I met Delvene at a television function.
She was just... you know, well, she's beautiful,
but she was also funny
and sort of not up herself or anything.
And I said to John, "I found you a girl, mate.
"Perfect for you."
I wasn't thinking of it as
a long-term permanent relationship.
I was thinking, "She'd be good in the shows."
And, you know, she had a great sense of humour.
He came over and said,
"You don't know me, I'm John Cornell.
"I produce The Paul Hogan Shows.
"Would you like to be on it?"
To be asked to be on The Paul Hogan Show was huge.
So, yes, please. Yeah.
And then at the first rehearsal,
you know, "Can you play a nun?"
"Yep. Can play a nun."
Don't come any closer, mother. I'm desperate.
"Can you play a prostitute?"
"Yeah, I can play a prostitute."
Anyone ever tell you you've got a very cruel mouth?
Like, the way it curls up at the corner like that.
[chuckles]
"Can you play a schoolgirl?" "Yep. Do a good schoolgirl."
[gasps] See, Sissy, I told you it was this house
with the aerial stickin' out the window.
I just said yes, yes to everything
even though I'd never done any of them before.
I was like, I don't want to miss my chance.
[moans]
Great party, Hoges. [chuckles]
[Delvene] I didn't know him at all.
I... I thought he was Strop.
[laughs] And then...
and then after the first two shows,
we started to see each other.
And I remember saying to my mum,
"I'm coming up to Brisbane next weekend, Mum.
"I'm going to bring my boyfriend to meet you."
"Oh, who's that?" And I said, "Strop."
[imitates engine revving]
[audience laughing]
[laughing] So... she thought I...
she thought I was dating Strop.
[laughs]
Rosie?
[guffaws] She's under.
Delvene was usually the desirable target
that Strop could never get, you know?
You'll just want to smother me with hugs and kisses
and stuff like that.
[audience chuckling]
And when I say, "Stop, that's enough,"
you'll say, "I haven't started yet,
"loverboy."
[stifles laughter]
[dejected] Oh, Rosie.
[Rosie laughing] I can't take this!
See ya, Hoges, and, uh...
see ya, loverboy. [chuckles]
Delvene's characters on all of those shows
were absolutely outrageous.
[smooth rock music plays]
[audience tittering]
Ohh!
[audience laughing]
[Peter] I think, every time that we went out on location
and shot something, or in the studio,
between John, Paul and Delvene,
we had the most hysterical times.
Da-dah!
[theme music plays]
[squeals]
[cackles]
[theme music continues]
Spread your butter on - nice and lumpy.
Here's an important bit.
Leave a big dob of butter on the knife.
See? Like that?
Why?
To wipe off in the Vegemite.
[audience laughing]
[Peter] Paul was the ultimate Aussie.
I mean, he was... he spoke Australian.
He was the Aussie that everybody wanted to be.
Hogan's a 1975 Australian.
He doesn't talk in rhyming slang.
He doesn't say, you know,
"El Glia down the horse and float."
And he doesn't talk... Which sort of died 20 years ago.
And he's not the bushman.
He hasn't got kangaroos and cork hats
and all that sort of thing around him.
He's a 1975 builder's labourer Australian.
And a bit of a character.
Not saying that every Australian's like that
or even that every Australian's got a bit of Hogan in 'em,
but there's plenty of Hogans out there in the pubs,
and I'll tell you what, they're alright.
[audience cheering, applauding]
Alright, mate, explain yourself.
What's this about you resigning from the show?
Yes, mate, well...
this can explain better than I could, mate.
It's me scrapbook.
Open it at any page.
[Paul] "This boring, talentless..."
-Mmm. -"..moronic throwback..."
[audience laughing]
That's a bit tough on you, mate.
Uh, that's not about me, mate. That's you.
[audience roaring with laughter]
[Delvene] Playing Strop allowed John
to hide behind a character as a writer.
And he was always observant.
He wasn't recognised in the street
when he wasn't Strop.
He never wanted to be in the spotlight
because it robbed him of that opportunity to observe.
And so, you know, for people to find out that it was
actually a very astute businessman
behind that character,
it was a shock for some people.
[Peter] John was an extraordinary businessman
and he had great ideas and he was very ambitious.
And once he got, you know,
Paul settled with the shows, et cetera,
he was continually moving on to what the next thing could be.
He was able to crack the nuts of these things
and he was such an optimist
and we all assumed that one day it would happen.
From the day I met him, he was talking about
the potential of World Series Cricket.
He was very astute in his negotiations with Kerry Packer
on The Paul Hogan Show.
[Bill] Packer, he was number one in Australia
by a significant margin
insofar as wealth, influence and profile
in the entertainment and media industries.
John knew that Kerry would be up for supporting his idea
of a renegade breakaway cricket revolution
that would pay the players properly.
[Mojo Singers] ♪ Lillee's pounding down ♪
♪ Like a machine ♪
♪ Pascoe's making divots in the green ♪
♪ Marshy's taking wickets ♪
♪ Hookesy's clearing pickets ♪
♪ And the Chappells' eyes have got that killer gleam... ♪
And so, between them, they pull that off brilliantly.
World Series Cricket had a massive global impact.
Australia was getting noticed.
[Mojo Singers] ♪ Come on, Aussie, come on ♪
♪ Come on ♪
♪ Come on, Aussie, come on Come on ♪
♪ Come on, Aussie, come on. ♪
So, once again, it was that resourcefulness of John
that led him to go, "What do we need?
"I know what we need. We need patriotism back."
[Peter] The Australian way was what was reflected
in the tourist campaign.
To the rest of the world, that was Australia,
and he personified Australia.
America, you look like you need a holiday.
A fair dinkum holiday.
In the land of wonder, the land down under!
"America, you look like you need a holiday."
What a great opening line.
Now, there's a few things I've got to warn ya about.
Firstly, you're gonna get wet,
because the place is surrounded by water.
Oh, and you're gonna have to learn to say g'day.
'Cause every day's a good day in Australia.
-G'day, Paul. -G'day, love.
Where did this idea come from?
'Cause this whole idea for the campaign
was yours originally, wasn't it?
Well, not mine, but it was myself, John Cornell,
and Alan Morris and Allan Johnston, which is Mojo.
It was a thing we talked about for about the last two years
after travelling a lot and finding out
how nobody knew anything about Australia really.
And we were all in marketing
and thought this would be the ideal product to market.
And then when John Brown got into office
with the Labor Government,
we'd heard about him, he was a goer.
So I went and talked to him
and he jumped in, threw a hand in too, and went from there.
He was such a proud Australian.
He was annoyed that people knew nothing about us, you know.
We were the bloody mystery of the world.
No one was coming here.
G'day, America.
Now, pay attention 'cause this is important stuff.
Before you come down under for your Aussie holiday,
you've got to get in shape.
Tone up those relaxin' muscles 'cause they'll get a work out.
Practise smiling.
He dispelled all the bullshit about Australia
and he opened the eyes of the world
to what we've got here.
Freedom, clean air, the environment.
Hello.
Looks like a boatload of your countrymen coming in there now.
Crikey.
We went from 57th in America
preference for an overseas holiday
to fifth, and Paul is so proud of that, you know.
He refused to take any money, he and Cornell.
He was such a proud Australian. He did it for nothing.
All that work, all those ads.
And it's believed that that was a deliberate act by John
to get exposure in the United States for Paul
with an intention of making a movie.
They hadn't thought of making a movie then.
They certainly hadn't written it.
Come and say g'day.
I'll slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you.
[jingle music plays] ♪ Come and say g'day. ♪
[man] You recognise this guy?
He's talking about the shrimp on the barbecue.
Haven't you ever seen that ad?
Ain't that the dude on that commercial ad?
They'll be saying, "Hey, mate."
Yes, that's the Australian guy - Hogan.
Aussie holiday. Check it out!
[both laugh]
I became a proud badge wearer
for Australians around the world.
Paul Hogan is here this evening, Bob.
-G'day, mate. -How are ya, brother?
[Bob Hawke] Good, good.
Can I say to you, er, Hoges, seriously,
thanks for what you're doing for Australia with those ads.
Means more jobs for Australians
and it means more people going back to America
and talking about us.
You've done a great job, Hoges, really.
[audience applauding]
And when someone says,
"Where are you going for your holidays?"
Say, "Australia."
Oh, and if they say, "Where's that?"
Tell 'em... [blows air]
Tell 'em, "It's where the America's Cup is."
[jingle music plays]
♪ Come and say g'day. ♪
[announcer] Australia has done it!
Australia has won the America's Cup!
[mellow music]
[crowd applauding]
I tell you what, any boss who sacks anyone
for not turning up today is a bum.
[laughter and cheering]
[Delvene] That whole transition had started to occur
in Australia,
and it might've been on the back of relishing being Aussies
after the win of the America's Cup.
We had just started to receive recognition,
but we didn't really understand who we were.
And why not have someone as approachable and likeable
as Paul Hogan represent our country?
And so that kind of bred Mick Dundee.
[traffic blaring]
[Paul] I was doing the tourism promotion in New York
and I had to walk back from where we were,
back to my hotel,
and it was five o'clock or something in New York
and it was just so horrendously crowded
and busy and bustling
and, sort of, it made me feel like a hillbilly.
I virtually wrote it walking down the street
and then back at the hotel,
handwritten in block capitals. [chuckles]
[Delvene] Hoges brought it to John
and then I kind of read it over John's shoulder, really.
[Paul] I wrote it out like it was almost like a book.
And then John principally, and Ken,
helped me turn it into a screenplay.
John was always extracting, extracting
the absolute best from Hoges, writing and performing.
[Paul] He's there, saying,
"Now, mate, you can do better than that - that line.
"And cut the end off that, make it a bit shorter."
He was a brilliant sub-editor, you know.
Oh, I loved the idea.
I loved the idea of, first of all, using a bushman
from Australia as the central character.
Because we didn't have many homegrown heroes.
We always talked about it, even in the script stages,
being a double-barrel shotgun
in that we thought... we wanted to make a movie
that appealed to people from seven to 70.
[Peter] John wanted to make a movie.
I think he had in mind right at the start
when he first met Paul -
"One day we'll make a movie with him."
That was John's mind.
I was running Hoyts Edgley Productions
as the general manager of the business.
John said, you know,
"In terms of the raising of the budget
"and the executive production role,
"is this something that Hoyts Edgley could do?"
And I said, "Absolutely. Yeah, this is."
I loved the script and others around us loved the script.
A couple threw some doubts in about it.
There was one significant naysayer,
and it was his view - as a person of the film industry
and a director who had done a few things -
that the script was a load of bollocks, it was hopeless.
Put in a six-page memo to Hoyts
and he was advising at the time, saying,
"Don't touch Crocodile Dundee with a 40-foot barge pole."
"It won't succeed.
"Hogan is a television star. He won't ever be a movie star."
We lost the film. We didn't get it.
It marched on.
If I had money back then, which I didn't,
it would've been a no-brainer, knowing John Cornell,
to invest in that.
Like, a no-brainer.
Strangely enough, some people missed that no-brainer.
Some people got into it -
well-regarded, successful people -
and then decided it wasn't that good.
I get a phone call from Packer.
He said, "Oh, your mate rang me.
He wants eight million to make a film.
He had put in some money,
like a million dollars or 10% or 15% of it,
and then pulled it out.
'Cause he was advised to pull it out,
that it wasn't gonna work and those sorts of things,
and he did it, which is quite unusual for Kerry
'cause he's another one with amazing instincts.
So he scrubbed it.
He laughed in the long run, Kerry.
At least he laughed later.
Left us with a shortfall.
So, you know, mortgaged the house,
scrambled around to get investors.
We hung in there.
John hung in there and got into all sorts of people.
And then an old mate of mine from Granville, a stockbroker,
rang up and said,
"I hear you're trying to make a movie, Hoges."
We'd never made a movie.
Cornell and Hogan had never made a movie.
Peter Faiman had never directed a movie.
But we grew up in Granville
and in Grandville you learned to have a go.
So we were having a go.
Sat down, read the script, laughed my frock off,
called my partners at Morgan Stockbroking
and said, "Have you ever heard of anybody
"being able to invest in Cornell and Hogan?"
And I said, "Well, now there's an opportunity
"and I think we should grab it."
We probably had about 2,000 investors overall, right?
There were a lot of mum and dads.
Delvene's mum and dad, they came in,
you know, and they were just
regular working-class people.
John was actually thrilled about the fact
that we were able to go to mum and dad investors
and his friends and family.
We're going out to the public's good fund
because you know that there's pensioners and battlers
who've got a share of Crocodile Dundee,
and that makes you feel good.
I took a punt. I took a gamble.
But one reason was
that I thought Paul Hogan was a born comic.
He has this wonderful way of looking,
and one look can give you the message.
Then we had the budget, and off we went.
[rock music]
[Delvene] John realised that Hoges had never made a film,
he'd never made a film,
Peter Faiman, the director, had never made a film.
There was a vital component
that had never done a film before.
And so John's attitude was, "I want the best.
"I want Russell Boyd and Ray Brown,"
and all of these people who were hugely experienced
and excellent in their fields
to help carry this project.
Because, first of all, we're going to learn from them,
but secondly, they're going to pick up any shortfalls
that might be there because we're first timers.
[indistinct chatter on set]
[Peter] Well, the central cast was obviously Paul
and we were all very, very keen on working with John Meillon.
So there was an Australian cast that we gathered,
but then the American girl was something else.
An associate producer and I were left in LA for a while
to find somebody to play this part of Sue.
We interviewed a lot of well-known actresses,
but nobody really in LA was interested
in taking the risk of coming to Australia,
going through some plight in the outback,
staying in motels instead of hotels and not having a limo.
Linda Kozlowski came in to meet
and she said, "Yeah, I'm up for it,
"I'll give it a go. Sounds terrific." You know?
"What's he like?" [chuckles] Meaning Paul.
[Linda] One of the things that struck me about the script
was that it had all the elements
of what I would want to see when I go see a movie.
It was funny, it was romantic, it had adventure,
you know, it had sort of a little bit of everything in it
and I loved his character.
I mean, I thought if I ever met that man in life,
I would want his children.
He's such a great character.
The only problem is Actors' Equity have said,
"No, you can't do that.
"If you want to bring someone in for an Australian film,
"they'll need to be a known celebrity.
"You'll want a superstar."
[Linda] I had just done Death of a Salesman on Broadway
with Dustin Hoffman
and John Malkovich and Stephen Lang.
And I wasn't a well-known actress, I wasn't famous,
and they felt like if you're not going to get
a famous actress,
then it should be an Australian actress.
[Delvene] John believed in authenticity.
An American actress had to play the American role.
To solve the visa issue, John wrote to John Brown.
He says, "I'm stuck."
Well, I had a multiple of portfolios.
I was the Minister for the Arts, so that was affecting me.
I was also the Minister for Immigration -
acting at that stage, someone was away.
So as the Minister for Arts,
I wrote to myself as the Minister for Immigration
and wrote back, giving permission to bring her in.
[laughs]
Actors' Equity haven't forgiven me yet!
[laughs]
[Delvene] You'd never know that John was stressed.
He loved to solve problems.
He was good at it, didn't mind a challenge at all.
You know, I had confidence that you guys would get me in.
[laughs] I really... I did.
I don't know why. I just really believed that.
[Ray Brown] I'll never forget we met those guys,
Paul and Corny on set.
We got off to a great start.
Hoges and Corny come towards us
and he used the old g'day thing.
And he just said, "Hey, guys,
"we think you're the most experienced crew
"we could get in Australia,
"and we don't know a lot about feature filming."
And then he said, "But, by the way,
"we know a hell of a lot about television
"and, more importantly, we know a hell of a lot about comedy."
At the end of that little chitchat,
Hoges said, "Let's go make a movie together."
Shooting. Start over.
-[shouts indistinctly] -[man] Action!
[exciting instrumental music]
Hi. Walter Reilly, Never Never Safaris.
I'm Mr Dundee's business partner.
[Linda as Sue] Nice to meet you, Mr Reilly.
Oh, please, call me Walter.
We're pretty informal up here in the bush.
Linda had yet to have the adventure
of actually shooting in the outback.
[Linda] I really didn't know that much about it.
I felt like, you know, it'll be some foresty place
just outside Sydney somewhere.
And I wasn't prepared for what it really was.
[silence]
[crow cawing]
So the first stop was in the middle of nowhere, right?
It was dead silent,
there was nothing around, she's a New York girl
and freaked, absolutely freaked out,
and said, "I can't do this, I can't do this."
[clapper loader] Mark it.
Action!
Welcome to Walkabout Creek.
[Peter] So all her security had gone, right?
So that's a New York girl stepping into the outback.
[Linda] It was actually a little town called McKinlay
that we changed it to Walkabout Creek for the film.
And the actual town had a population of 17.
We knew them all.
We knew the whole town by the time we left.
This is the pub and this is where I first meet Mr Dundee.
-Nah, nah... -Alright.
[Peter] Linda was a Juilliard-trained actress.
Hoges is not in the slightest bit interested
in actresses for a start,
meaning, you know, the profession of it,
and certainly didn't want to rehearse.
[Linda] Pete was great.
We would just go page by page through the script
and he was my sounding board.
I could really talk to him about the character
and my feelings and what I felt good about,
what I didn't feel so good about.
[Peter] When Linda met Hoges and he didn't want to rehearse,
she suddenly recognised, "Well, hang on,
"I'm working with an amateur here.
"Who is this person? I don't get it."
Nothing like a double bourbon to start the day off right.
[crew member laughs]
Hey?
[Peter] I spent hours at night talking her down
because she wanted to go back to America
because she was working with this unprofessional.
And I had to say "He's a very big star.
"People in Australia love him. He's terribly smart.
"It will work. I promise you it will work."
Get the camera off me so I can spit this shit out.
[crew members laugh]
[Peter] At that point in time I realised that
what we really had to do
was film as much as we could in sequence
so that they could really get together
and work together properly.
And the story was, of course,
her as a journalist meeting Paul as this outback guy.
So I thought, "Well, if we start there,
"then perhaps the chemistry will build," right?
'Cause it was the only way I could get her around
to accepting Paul's style of work
and, frankly, Paul around to understanding
what she required from him.
Hang on to Cyril for me, Wal,
while I dance with this charming young lady.
[Paul as Mick] Stand aside, boys.
[wolf-whistling, lively chatter]
[Linda] Honestly, being on the set of Crocodile Dundee,
you felt that innocence in a way.
It was like, "I've got a barn, let's put on a show!
"Come on, everybody!"
[upbeat music]
It had that, like, "Yeah!" kind of feeling
and you don't get that very often.
[crew member] And cut. Thank you.
[John chuckles]
[both laugh]
-We're not saying a word. -Hello.
[Delvene] From what I witnessed,
it was just a great shoot.
Just a happy time for everybody.
"You'll find just a nice friendly bunch
"up here in this town."
-[laughs] -And I smile and walk in.
Perfect. Yeah, we don't need to do that then, do we?
That's easy.
In fact, you should've brought your own crew.
And I know how to do the con scene,
-so I can go home now, can I? -[laughs]
[John Meillon] They're marvellous people to work with
and it's their first film, and it doesn't make any difference
because the way they're going about it,
it could've been their 25th film.
Rehearsal and action!
[John Meillon] I think I can speak on behalf of everybody -
nobody has ever been treated on a picture
the way that Mr Cornell has treated us as a producer.
And everybody's... it's a very big happy unit,
and that's a tremendous thing for a film.
Tremendous thing.
Hello, Charlie. Scratch?
John Cornell is a doll. He's wonderful.
He's just been so kind to everyone,
really taken great care of us.
He's great at, you know, keeping the spirit together
between everyone and just really looking after us all.
He's been terrific.
Just behind you, near where that... just over your head.
[crew member] Towards me, Brownie. Big one.
[Linda] I think Australian crews are wonderful.
I've had a great time. They're really a real family.
And I think... sometimes when I'm off the set,
I'll just sit back and watch them and really admire them.
I mean, they work really, really hard.
I was going to say "bloody".
I'm really turning Australian now! [laughs]
Well, one can only assume that somewhere up there,
you know, sort of 10 feet in the air,
we'll get a good opening composition.
[Russell] As the director of photography,
or DOP, as we call it out here... [chuckles]
-16 on the line. -16 on the line?
-[Peter speaks indistinctly] -No, I don't, actually.
My prime role is lighting the set
with the help of the gaffer and his assistant
and the rest of the crew.
But the script determines everything.
And the production team, particularly from the director,
they determine how it's going to go together obviously
and what their thoughts are about how to make it work
and keep bubbling along.
We get the sense that we're too close.
Well, it will be--
I know when we're down here, you want them to be...
-Righto. Yep. -Understand what I'm saying?
Sure, sure.
It's your job to keep everybody happy, really.
It's part of the job to keep everybody happy.
[Peter] Can we... can somebody grab us a cushion, PJ?
[crew member] Yep.
[Ray] Film crews have got to get on like a house on fire,
and we all did on that film
because we're all like-minded, I guess.
So it was a very enjoyable shoot.
Grace Walker was our production designer
and he found a rubber crocodile somewhere.
[machinery whirring]
We used that for a lot of scenes -
in the attack scene, obviously.
Didn't have sharp teeth or anything. [chuckles]
-How big, roughly? -About three foot.
Keep going?
Sure will - we can sort of lift it over I think.
-Wouldn't you say? -Yeah.
[Peter] And he comes in here and grabs it now.
We'll probably have to be drifting it back
as it goes or something.
-Yeah. -We've still got her face...
[Russell] Film crews are the same the world over I've found.
Aspirations are the same
and we get on with the job at hand.
It's just a whole conglomeration of people
working together, which is what I loved.
[crew member] Standby... and action.
[gasping]
[Peter] Russell had at that time, you know,
such a history in movies,
and to have this sort of television director
working with him, you know,
it was not what he was accustomed to, really.
So if we're shooting that way in sort of--
Well, there's no reason, by the way,
that she shouldn't appear behind the rocks and we...
like, that she doesn't appear behind the rocks there.
Oh, no, we have the rocks in the foreground.
We first met up obviously as the storyboard
was being created
and we talked about how simple I wanted it to be.
And then he brought magic to the screen
with this simplicity of shots that I wanted
that were absolutely magical on the screen
because he's the best.
[laidback instrumental music plays]
[geese honking]
[birds screeching]
[buffalo grunts]
[Delvene] Russell Boyd - such an artist
when it comes to cinematography
that even though it was only a comedy film,
it had this huge cinematic magnificence.
The first time I saw the rushes
was when Mick's talking about being attacked by the crocodile
when he finds his dinghy.
Now you can see where he sunk his teeth in.
And it was a side of Paul I hadn't seen before, really,
when he was low key and understated
and slightly menacing.
Yeah, see, a croc will grab you,
take you down to the bottom of the water
and roll you over and over and over
until you stop kicking.
Then he'll take you away to his meat safe somewhere.
A rock ledge, log,
down under the water, and jam you under it...
And John said, "What do you think, Delly?"
And I said, "I think it's incredible."
This is the side of Paul that we haven't seen.
So he now becomes Mick Dundee.
Yeah, anyway, he wasn't happy with the grip he had on me,
so he let go to get a better one,
and I talked him out of it.
[Delvene] Mick was wise,
he was solitary, self-reliant,
smart, not egotistical...
..honourable...
..and appealing to men and women.
And so I think we found our hero.
More tucker here than you could poke a stick at.
Tucker?
Food. You hungry?
[Delvene] And hugely funny.
Did I forget to say funny?
[laughs]
How do you like your goanna? Medium? Well-done?
You don't really expect me to eat that?
Yeah, it's great. Here, try some of those yams.
[Sue] What about you? Aren't you having any?
You can live on it...
but it tastes like shit.
[chuckling] Oh...
Paul Hogan is, uh... just great to work with.
Knocking around with the flying nun, mate.
[laughter]
Good hat.
[Linda] He's really a generous actor.
He's a really good actor.
And I didn't know anything about him
when I came over here.
I knew him from the commercial, vaguely. You know?
That's all I knew. So I was just pleasantly surprised.
Or, you know, I just thought he was terrific.
Breaker, breaker, breaker.
The runaway shagger here. [chuckles]
[Peter] She saw now that he was funny
and fell in love. [chuckles]
Eventually.
So, really, the story of the movie
is really the story of their lives.
[Delvene] It was a romantic story, I think,
that when we shot chronologically,
when they kissed at the billabong,
that was their first kiss.
I thought that was beautiful the way he hesitated
before he went in and kissed her.
I think there was great truth in that.
And Linda was concerned because Paul was married.
But what can you do?
And I just tried to be her confidante obviously,
but also make her feel like you have to follow your heart.
And you do.
You have to follow your heart. And they did.
It was quite beautiful to see him find that kind of love.
[Linda] We went out at sunset and we had the day off, so...
It was so incredible - it was like a dream,
where you just didn't know this place could exist.
So beautiful.
We were able to film on Aboriginal land.
[Indigenous music plays]
It was such a special, amazing place.
It was such a privilege to be able to be there
and to film there.
[music continues]
[men singing in Indigenous language]
We're shooting corroboree tonight
and these boys here, you know, like local people
and especially old man there, he on the Kakadu National Park
and this is his songs.
So I join in and dance with them.
[Indigenous music continues]
[music ends]
Well, yes, this is part of where Paul and I and the girl,
you know, Mick and Sue,
where I meet them and talk to them and I say,
"I'm on my way to corroboree over at the Jabba." You know?
-That what you were doing? -That's what I was doing.
[both chuckle]
Well, Neville, he's a tribal and father was a tribal
and... but he's a city boy.
He there, you know... [laughs] Yeah.
-[interviewer] Not like you. -Well, something like me, yeah.
[both laugh]
[David] Well, I like dancing corroboree
and, you know, when I come back home, go to bush,
make corroboree and dance, have a big campfire,
I enjoy it.
It's different from the city in disco, eh?
-What do you reckon? -John Travolta.
Yeah, right.
-[David laughs] -Seen him in the white suit.
Yeah, right.
Well, that's my uniform there, look.
[Paul] Oh, yeah. Studio 54 in New York.
Paul Hogan is really character.
He's really sort of into it, blackfellas.
He came to see and meet blackfellas there,
my mob,
and he talked to them, "Can we make this film?"
And we done it and everyone agreed...
"..David Gulpilil got to be here."
And said, "Yes, come up," they reckon. "Yes. Good."
And fitted to me and to other Aboriginal people
where we was dancing and singing.
Yeah, that was real stuff.
[Indigenous singing and music playing]
[in English] With my full, initiated painting,
dancing.
[Indigenous music continues]
Crocodile Dundee is a good film but it's too short for me.
Mark it. 161, take two cameras A and B.
Very good, thank you. Terrific.
It's the candid camera creepos.
Wanna see what's inside my mouth, Jonno?
[Linda chuckles]
Just 32 perfect teeth.
[Peter] It was a tight schedule.
We went from the outback to New York
and we were filming basically the next day
after we got off the flight in New York.
[traffic blaring]
[siren wailing]
[Linda] New York was much more challenging
to shoot than the outback.
The outback was perfect. It was quiet and isolated.
And suddenly there were, you know,
people everywhere and extras,
and after work everybody would go off and do their own thing,
and it was New York City - what the heck?
And so it was great to be back,
but it was also a little more challenging.
[man] Action, Paul.
[Linda] You had to really, like, double down
to focus more because there were so many distractions
going on around us.
[Peter] The sound guys who were working
in the silence of the outback
were suddenly on Fifth Avenue
with this extraordinary cacophony of noise.
All the directions were shouted,
so everybody had to talk louder.
471, take three!
Got to be walking as I set you up in the back.
If you're not with the film,
please do not stop and hang out.
We're throwing the beans, and action!
[Paul] Well, a lot of what I did with him
when I invented him was I made him
what I'd found that Americans thought about Australians.
This is the image they have,
and it's colourful, about Australia, so that was...
They sort of were responsible
for making him like he was, yeah.
Mick Dundee's room, please.
[Linda] I really, really want to give Norma -
the late, beautiful, wonderful Norma Moriceau -
a big shoutout
because, first of all, I think that she gave that movie
a touch of cool.
I mean, I can't imagine Mick Dundee without that hat.
That's iconic.
And the lizard-skin jacket,
I mean, that was a superhero costume.
The red dress also is iconic.
I was freaked out about the red dress because I was like,
"Oh, no, my character would not wear this dress.
"I'm so sorry.
"She's supposed to be wealthy and raised in New York City."
And Norma and I went shopping and we picked out a black...
I can remember - it was a black Norma Kamali dress.
It was form fitting but it was very elegant.
And we came and showed it to John and Paul
and they were like...
[laughs]
We were like, "You don't like it?"
And Norma said, "They told me it has to be much sexier."
And she's like, "Okay, I'll give you sexy."
She used to say, "Over the top is the only place to be."
[chuckles]
Incidentally, miss, if you're looking for Crocodile Mick,
he's gone walkabout.
I don't suppose you know where?
Yeah, he's headed for the subway, two blocks down.
You better hurry.
Mind this for me.
The composer tends to be somebody who sees a film
more often than just about anybody else.
I start off by, I suppose, thinking,
"What does this film need?"
[edgy rhythmic film score plays]
And I came up with that...
[mimics edgy rhythm]
There's no music, there's just rhythm.
And it all developed from there.
[film score continues]
The subway, and you kind of get swept through
as she's running, taking her shoes off.
And just that contrast between the urgency
that she's showing...
[film score continues]
..and Mick's laconic kind of, "I'm going off to see America."
It's that kind of juxtaposition that makes that work.
Tell him I love him.
I love you!
She loves me.
I thought if I could crack that,
then I could confidently launch into the rest of the film.
[wondrous film score plays]
It felt to me in Crocodile Dundee
as if I had to tell the story as well as they had told it.
And I didn't stuff it up.
You got a light, buddy?
Yeah, sure, kid.
There you go.
And your wallet.
[edgy film score]
Mick, give him your wallet.
What for?
He's got a knife.
[laughs]
That's not a knife.
[edgy score continues]
That's a knife.
-[knife clatters] -[fabric rips]
[Delvene] "That's not a knife."
That's a great story, actually.
We edited Crocodile Dundee
and John was watching the rushes with the editor
trying to piece that together
and they had three or four takes.
It was like, "No, no, there's another take.
"There's another take. There's a better take."
And we couldn't find it.
And he knew that it was the take that Paul had done
after Peter Faiman had said, "Cut."
And Paul kept playing around
with this young kid who was the mugger
and he had this glint in his eye,
and John had recognised that.
And it was like that because it was after...
the pressure was off of filming.
Like, "Cut." You know?
"Okay, I want to have a bit of a play."
And it was in the editing room bin
and John fished it out and put that scene in the film,
and that is the scene of the film.
So I love that story -
it was that John knew what Hoges had delivered
as Mick Dundee in that moment
and knew that it was there somewhere
and was intent on putting it in because that was the take.
[reporter] Hogan and John Cornell set out
to make a popular entertaining movie,
and at the crowded premiere in Sydney this week,
there was an irresistible feeling
of confidence in the air.
Cornell believes he's backed a winner.
Were you so confident that Crocodile Dundee
was going to work?
Um... well, they say films are a gamble,
but in this case I knew the horse
and the horse talks to me.
And, uh... I've got great faith in Hogan,
always have had and probably always will have.
The guy's not a hero. He's a human.
Well, he's just a larrikin.
But, you know, it's a good fun film.
Where did he come from?
Out of there and out of the Northern Territory.
As soon as it got released in Australia,
it was just through the roof.
Hoyts were exhibiting, so we were getting the numbers
and the numbers were unprecedented.
Once we got through the first three weeks,
I didn't worry anymore.
We knew the mums and dads were safe.
The people who invested in Crocodile Dundee
will get four or five or six times their money back.
They really did care about those people
who put their $5,000 and $10,000 in.
That was serious investment for them.
Here's to Crocodile Dundee!
We released the film, and it was just blockbuster.
Biggest Australian movie, but by a long stretch.
We had a dynamite movie. Now what do we do with it?
The ultimate test is to sell it in America.
US was the biggest market.
In our case, I said they can't take...
no one takes the movie anywhere until Australia releases,
because I know it's going to be a big hit
and then the Americans will come chase us.
[Delvene] So John didn't want to do any presales
because he had so much faith in that film
and self-belief
that he took it to America under his arm.
First studio, 20th Century Fox, knocked it back.
The guy barely watched it.
And finally he got to Paramount,
and he went there because he loved their gates. [laughs]
In through the big fancy gates
and into Barry London's office.
The first meeting I had with John
was at the studio right after I'd seen Crocodile Dundee
and the first words that I remember speaking to him
was, "I love your movie."
Which is the line that you want to hear
from a distributor,
but they weren't quite sure how it was going to go.
And so John said, "Well, I've had it audience tested."
If you test a film and the audience says it's good,
the film's a failure.
The audience, when you test a film,
have to say, "It is absolutely fantastic,
"the best thing I've ever seen."
Then you've got success.
We had it researched in America.
Most producers don't do this,
but I thought it might be a plus for the selling of it.
So instead of having them research it,
I paid for the research myself this week.
And I won't bore you with the details about what happens,
but we got a 59 on this complicated input
of showing it to a couple of thousand people in audience.
The average is a 43.
That 59 has meant people like, well, Frank Mancuso,
the president of Paramount Pictures,
got on the phone to the guy who'd done the research
and said, "Is this correct that this movie cracked the 59?"
He knew that, you know, we eat the same food as Americans,
we watch the same movies, we drive the same cars,
listen to the same music, watch the same TV shows.
They're our brothers, so they're going to get it.
All of a sudden, Paramount are all bright eyed and bushy tail.
"We've done this testing..." "This looks pretty good!"
And it was right up there with like Top Gun,
and they were surprised by that.
And, "Where did you get it tested?"
"Well, I went to the same company that you use."
[giggles]
And we all kind of looked at each other and said,
"Wow! This is really good stuff, really good stuff."
And from that moment on,
our enthusiasm, that kind of enthusiasm was apparent
and we never lost it.
Paul picked up on it, John picked up on it,
and off we went.
-[upbeat synthesiser music] -[traffic blaring]
[Delvene] The US press went mad.
Paramount had Linda and Paul on talk shows
all over the country.
We opened in 500 theatres and this word of mouth got around.
[American man] Crocodile Dundee - sold out.
Like a comic book superhero. I loved it. I loved it.
He's cute and he's charming and you... I don't know!
When he's about to get mugged, right, and he says,
"Now that's a knife," that was scary.
And he pulls out his big machete and he starts
waving it around.
Of course I think he's sexy! That's why I came tonight.
Well, the money just came in in a wave.
8.8 million the first week...
..19 the second week...
..28 the third week,
and then look out!
It was a runaway train.
And I went, "Yes!"
We had a movie that was sensational.
Didn't matter that we never heard of
Paul Hogan at that point,
and it didn't matter that it was an Australian film.
What it was was a terrific Australian film
with some guy called Paul Hogan.
[Denis] Crocodile Dundee in the States ran for six months.
It's only in USA, Canada and Australia.
We've got the rest of the world to go yet.
[audience laughing]
[Paul] But I'd have been happy if was a hit
in Australia and in the UK.
I didn't know it was going to be a hit in Israel
and Switzerland and Mexico.
[chuckles] And it was.
[Delvene] Crocodile Dundee released all around the world.
It was a global sensation.
For $8.8 million Australian, we made $328 million.
You take it over 40 years,
well, it's gone up about 10 times.
Let's say seven times.
So, what'd I say? Seven threes, so that's $2.8 billion.
Crocodile Dundee is the biggest foreign movie
in the history of movies.
It's the biggest movie in the world
ever made outside of a major studio.
It was just report after report after report
saying highest revenue ever,
biggest box opening ever, ever, ever.
So there's a lot of biggest "evers" in there.
In fact, Paul Hogan used to say to me,
"Don't tell me about how much money it took last weekend -
"tell me about the evers."
You just don't know until you do it.
And Dundee sort of did that, opened the floodgates.
I think we all knew it was going to be successful,
but how successful was sort of the question area.
And it's very successful, which is great.
And it just sort of crept up.
And then we went a couple times.
Groups of us would go and sit in the back row,
I think in New York and some other places,
just to watch the audience reaction
and seeing how into it they were
and cheering, you know, at the end
and just really calling out
and just feeling very so engaged with it.
We were going, "Oh, this is much bigger
"than we thought it was going to be, wow."
[Delvene] The film was nominated for an Oscar
for Best Original Screenplay.
[Paul] I enjoyed the Oscar nomination
because that's made by other writers
[Delvene] To be nominated for an Oscar,
if you're talking about pinnacles of acting, directing,
writing, making films,
that's what you want.
That's a recognition.
Both Linda and Paul received Golden Globe nominations.
And it is a dream when you're an actor to be recognised.
You can't imagine that that would ever happen to you.
It was so funny.
I got a Golden Globe as the best actor
and I think the Foreign Press were embarrassed
when they got to meet me.
And they said, "It's just him with a hat on,"
was the only difference between me and Dundee.
And I thought, "I'm not a very good actor."
Me, I just put on different hats.
I mean, if you look at sort of Mick Dundee and me,
I'm convincing as that character,
but that's it, you know.
You're not going to find another Paul Hogan
around the world.
I mean, Paul Hogan now,
according to all the executives in Hollywood,
is in the top two or three box office stars in the world.
So, luckily, he doesn't have any ego problems
'cause the last thing we want is for him to be
walking around thinking that he's Paul Hogan.
[interviewer chuckles]
[Terry] Well, Hogan made Crocodile Dundee.
If Paul Hogan hadn't been born,
would we have had somebody else play the role
and do just as well?
I don't think so.
[Delvene] Hoges will tell you himself that
Mick Dundee is just Hoges in the bush.
[chuckles]
-You'd be looking at Linda... -Back to the spot.
Yeah, you'd be walking back the spot.
I'll be looking cool. I do it every day.
-Yeah. -Gotcha.
There was a quality about Mick Dundee
that every man and woman related to.
[Linda] And there was something amazing
about this superhero that he was relatable.
You could see yourself in him.
Like, "Yeah, that's what I would've done if I could."
You know?
He wasn't like half man and half bug or...
[chuckles] You know what I mean?
Or some, like, metal super guy flying through the sky.
He was a guy, like a normal guy,
but he was like a superhero at the same time.
And he came from a completely different place.
[whistles melodiously]
[Delvene] Mick Dundee was so believable
that people thought he was a real person. [chuckles]
[whistles melodiously]
[Paul] The movie wouldn't have worked as well if they'd had
a big movie star in it.
Because in most of the world, I was unknown
and therefore the character became real.
When I did international press junkets for promotion,
it was all, "Mr Dundee,"
or, "Can you throw over there, Mick?"
He was real.
The last survey the tourism people were doing
about what people knew about Australia
and new famous Australians,
they had, you know, Chris Hemsworth
and probably Nicole and Margot names on it.
And on the list, I was fifth most famous Australian.
I think it was 11th on one of the others,
and I didn't even make the top 10 or something.
But who was number one?
Mick Dundee.
Was the most famous Australian in every survey they did.
I thought, "But he's not real. I made him up."
So I didn't make the list, but he did. [chuckles]
Paul, it's great to see you in New York. I love your show.
-You got good taste. -Ah. Thank you.
-You have a good show. -Very professional.
[laughs]
I think it's acknowledged that Paul put Australia on the map.
It started, of course, with the "shrimp on the barbecue" stuff
and then it was compounded by Crocodile Dundee.
In America, the Australian accent,
suddenly - I really believe this -
suddenly became acceptable.
Um...
[imitates Australian accent] No worries, mate.
[Peter] He made it very, very clear
that we're a nice lot of people.
We're fun, we're ordinary, we're not strangers.
[Peter on set] I'll get somebody on the case.
You want that? I'll fix it.
The relationship that exists between John and Paul
and it comes out as something special and unique
as we talked about earlier.
And I think from that standpoint,
they offer a freshness
and - something that is really special in this business -
a loyalty.
I have one more thing to add to that.
Both of those guys are really nice guys.
In addition to being terrific filmmakers,
they're really nice people.
[Bill] I think for all of us in Australia,
this idea of what you can and can't do
was well and truly kicked down the street
because what they took on and what they achieved
was so impossible.
Crocodile Dundee has been described
as lightning in a bottle.
So, how does that come about?
That's the magical collaboration
of all of those incredible people on the crew,
as well as John and Paul,
is that something happens.
There's a...
It's like a cauldron brewing.
All the ingredients go in, and then magic happens.
And then you have to contain it.
And I think there was just so much potential with that film
that it was like lightning in a bottle -
it's just needing to get out!
You know, and then it got out.
[Linda] For sure, the energy of the film,
the newness of the film...
It was a comedy, it was a romantic comedy,
but it was also, like, one of the big adventure movies.
You had incredible scenery.
[David Gyngell] It's like one of those films
that they keep showing to say,
why is this an outstanding success?
And kind of everyone gets it.
The warmth and the normal traditional beats
of a hero, fish out of water.
For me, I felt very much a fish in water.
The crew was incredible.
Everybody's attitude was just so great
and we had this common goal of just getting it right
and making it right and making it work.
And, you know, saying, "What about this?
"What about that? Oh, that's kind of stra--"
And so... I was in my element in a way.
And everybody's enthusiasm as well was very inspiring.
I think it was a combination of all those things
that John, again,
making the working place such a great place -
it made people want to do better.
They felt those good vibes, you know,
and it permeated the set
and I think in the end it permeated the screen.
It came right out into the audience.
John always thought, right from the scene one,
"This is going to work, this is going to be a hit."
I don't think anyone else did -
not to the extent he believed it.
Belief in himself and belief in me more than I had.
[chuckles] Sort of.
He's got the magic ingredient that stars have in them,
and he doesn't only have it for this country
but for overseas as well.
It's very hard to define, mate.
I think he's got a few ingredients
that we're not even sure about ourselves.
[man] Rehearsal it is!
[chatter on set]
[Delvene] They were so attuned, John and Paul.
They never finished each other's sentences or stuff,
but their thoughts were, like, in the ether at the same time.
Not quite telepathic,
but so on the same wavelength.
Is it the line that's worrying you?
-The dialogue? -It's the dialogue.
The... [garbled scream]
-That's the one, yeah. -[John chuckles]
I guess I could say they were blood brothers.
They were so comfortable with each other.
They were so in sync.
What should I be thinking?
It's time?
Fall off the building, I'm hanging on the ledge...
It just won't come to me.
Think about the coathanger, mate.
-[Paul] Oh, the old coathanger? -The old coathanger.
[Linda] They just could look at each other and know,
and they really had the same ideas
and the same feelings about so many things.
We've got sort of a bit of a mental umbilical cord
between us creatively anyway,
so that's the easiest part with Paul.
You don't have to direct him anyway.
You just say, "You got a fly on ya face, mate."
That's about all you need to say to him.
[Delvene] They were so both coupled with their values
and principles and philosophies
and attitude to life,
that whatever they did together,
they did symbiotically to the point where
they were like soul brothers for eternity.
Just this incredible connection
from two opposing backgrounds, really.
But so like-minded, despite that.
That, to me, that was rare.
-[laughs] -Sometimes you're embarrassed
when we try and do this candid stuff.
Just relax.
At least we can cut out whatever we don't like.
Yeah, that's right. We edit this.
[both chuckle]
He'd take a bullet for me, John.
Your financial advisor and business manager
and entrepreneur is also your best friend?
It's... it's fabulous.
I have come to send you to the boilermakers mixed prawn night.
Me?
A little wave of the magic four-by-two,
and you'll look like a million dollars.
Get on to this. [whistles softly]
[tinkling music plays]
[audience laughter]
[David Gyngell] It's that leap of going
from being small screen to large screen,
to local to international.
I can't off the top of my head, unless you want to remind me,
think of anyone else who's done that.
Gravitas, aura, swagger.
Those guys had it in spades.
These guys didn't have laneways -
they just took whole landscapes.
Then went across it in their way.
They want to do good. They want to make people laugh.
It kind of comes from a really simple, nice space
that all of us can attach to and go along the ride with.
But, you know, if you've got the ability
to make people laugh and forget their woes for a bit,
you know, oh, what a job.
[audience applauding]
I miss me, mate. [chuckles] The old Strop.
[birds twittering]
[bee buzzing]
[gentle music]
[Delvene] He was diagnosed the day before he turned 60
with Parkinson's disease.
We would talk all through our 46 years of marriage
till the cows came home.
You know, great conversationalists,
great conversations.
And to see him lose his voice was a real loss.
But through it all, I've never seen anyone be more brave.
He had a great depth of courage.
He never whinged.
He was stoic and he was accepting
and was never sorry for himself.
A couple of times I'd see him go - [sighs] -
and you could see he was just really tired of it.
And for me, as his long life love,
that was a really difficult thing to watch.
He always wanted to get to 80, and he did.
[reporter 1] His wife of 46 years
was by his side last night...
[reporter 2] You'll know him as Paul Hogan's
dopey sidekick Strop, but John Cornell...
[reporter 3] In a statement, his family remembered him
as a true egalitarian
who sought equity and equality
and fought for a fair go...
[Delvene] I had said to John before he passed,
what bird do you want to be remembered as?
Because we've got a tradition in our family.
And he said, "I want a kookaburra."
I said, "Why?"
And he said, "'Cause they make people laugh."
[kookaburras laughing distantly]
They land in the tree where we've tied all the ribbons
that we had people send in
who couldn't come to the funeral because it was COVID.
And that's John's tree
and all these ribbons are ephemerally ageing
and it's kind of like life itself.
A few years before he passed away
and he wasn't in a good way,
we went round to his house to pick him up.
Went to get his shoes,
and he put his foot into his shoe and he went, "Hang on."
And he pulled his foot out of his shoe
and he put his hand into his shoe
and there was a rigor mortis mouse,
tiny little mouse, in his shoe.
And he just looked up and said...
"I got to get out more."
Because he clearly hadn't put his shoes on enough lately.
Or he hadn't chosen those shoes.
But that's just a classic beautiful line.
That he just - straight off the top of his head -
"I've got to get out more."
You know? And that's just... that's Corny.
As a friend,
as a mentor to me, as someone I love dearly,
it'd never been better for me.
[Denis] Everything I've had to do with Hogan and Cornell
in the making of the movie
and all the other things that we've done through our lives
has been a privilege.
[emotionally] I'm getting teary.
Um...
One of the saddest things
was I could never get to John's funeral.
Anyway... Thanks, John.
Sorry.
-Oh, sorry. -[Delvene sobs softly]
[romantic instrumental music playing]
[Delvene] My wish initially when I fell in love with John
was that we would grow old together, and we did.
How lucky am I?
I search for my lover.
He's missing one thong
and wearing a lifesaver's cap.
-Pray tell, is it yours? -Yeah.
How do you know?
By the chewing gum under the strap.
-Ah. -[audience laughter]
[Delvene] This documentary, this is an act of love.
For John, primarily,
because he's not here to be honoured.
But also for the film and for Paul
and all my old friends,
everyone who added their spark to Crocodile Dundee.
[laughs]
[Delvene] When anything is made with courage, conviction,
chemistry and humour...
[both laugh]
Do you want me to hide it?
[Delvene] ..you can feel this magic
and everything becomes possible.
[Paul] I love you, Delly. It's all been a pleasure.
-Yeah. Travel well. -Okay.
[Delvene] I may never know what makes magic happen...
..but I do know that, to me,
the most magical ingredient of all is love.
[kookaburras laughing distantly]
[interviewer] I want it from the horse's mouth, John.
-Are we starting? -[interviewer] Yep.
Yeah, okay. Hold on, I'll put this out.
[uplifting music]
I'll tickle you. That'll make you wake up.
[both chuckle]
So, what did we used to say?
-Elbows out. -Elbows out.
[laughing] Minister for Good Times.
[blows kiss]