The Set (film)

The Set is a 1970 Australian drama film directed by Frank Brittain and produced by David Hannay. The film depicts homosexuality within Australia, and was the first feature film in Australia to have homosexuality as a main theme.

Paul Lawrence is a working class man who dates Cara, sells shirts at a Sydney department store, and dreams of attending art school. Cara leaves for London and Paul becomes the protege of designer Marie Rosefield. Through this he enters the 'set', the world of Sydney art society.

Rosefield is friends with Mark Broniski, an artist who commissions Paul to design a set for British stage director, John L. Fredericks. Paul is helped by art student Tony Brown, who is dating Paul's cousin, Kim Sylvester. Paul and Tony begin a homosexual affair. Kim's mother Peggy has an affair with Boronoski.

Paul and Tony break up and Paul attempts suicide. He is reunited with Cara.

The script was based on an unpublished novel written by Australian actor Roger Ward in 1960, based on diaries he had kept since 1954 reflecting on sexual mores in Australia. He showed it to Ed Devereaux who suggested Ward take it to American producer Frank Brittain, who had just made Journey Out of Darkness (1967) and wanted to direct. Brittain asked Ward to rewrite the material and emphasise the homosexual content. According to Ward, the script was rewritten by Brittain's 24-year-old third wife as well as novelist Elizabeth Kata.

The movie was shot in early 1969. No sets were used, with filming taking place in private houses on Sydney's north shore and in Paddington. Production was highly publicised, in part due to a nude appearance by TV personality Hazel Phillips. Roger Ward later said he was unhappy with the experience:

I was devastated to see the ruination of a previously polished and highly tuned script and spent my short time on set leaping in front of the cameras yelling, “Cut! That is not the dialogue”. It got to the stage that the actors were ignoring the director and coming to me in a clandestine manner to ask for interpretations and the correct lines to say. Understandably the director was angered by this and I was packed up and sent out of town on a phony publicity tour so a lot of the film went through without my input or salvaging and ended up in what I thought at the time was a ‘cringeworthy state’. So the risks I faced at that time, and they were real risks and they did eventuate, was one of being a laughing stock, of being embarrassed for creating such a badly written script.

The censor demanded a dozen cuts before the film was passed for export. The producers appealed and in the end only four words were deleted. The film was refused registration as an Australian quota production under the quality clause of the New South Wales Film Quota Act.