THE LURE OF THE EH

BRUCE BERESFORD

It must have been sometime in 1975, on I know that now the EJ and EH Holdens the Pacific Highway at St Leonards. I nearly are much sought after (a quick browse ran off the road when I spotted a 1963 EH on Google revealed they sell for anything in a car yard. I’m not sure why I had always from $20,000 to $35,000), but at that found this model appealing; perhaps it was time this was not the case. I remember a because it vaguely resembled a miniaturised rather furtive salesman looking at me with version of the American cars of the 1950s I curiosity as I walked purposefully around admired. my new purchase, hoping, undoubtedly Around $900 changed hands. It in vain, to give the impression of someone seemed a lot to me at the time, but I had who was not simply an impulse buyer. just signed a contract to direct a film of The exterior two-tone gunmetal grey was David Williamson’s play Don’s Party and profoundly unexciting, but the 1950s was thrilled to be receiving a $10,000 fee American Chrysler-style dashboard and, – though, in retrospect, it was not all that especially, the purple-and-silver vinyl seats spectacular for a year’s work, even in the were a joyous counterpoint. These stretched 1970s. I was, however, intent on establishing gaudily across the front and rear – none of a little critical credibility after the hammering this individual aeroplane seat nonsense with I’d taken with two Barry McKenzie films. headrests that are all the rage these days, a previous spread: the eh premier – new styling, new ‘red’ motor 162 ‘development’ originated, no doubt, by commander, entombed under a cupola with some misogynist, a man deeply unappealing a peephole. The side mirrors on modern to women who resented the thought of cars are a further trap (there were none on attractive girlfriends, or possibly even wives, the EH) as they are aligned with a lethal snuggling up right next to the driver with blind spot, which leads inevitably to minor their right hand resting, arousingly, on his collisions and scrapes, providing plenty of left thigh as he skilfully manoeuvred the EH opportunity to witness otherwise normal through city traffic. people insane with road rage. The next five or six years were a delight. Perhaps the only modern addition The EH was driven all over NSW and meriting my endorsement is the now Victoria with never a hint of a mechanical ubiquitous air-conditioning. I remember problem. In fact, the engine was incredibly a number of EH outback trips in over one simple in comparison with cars built after hundred degrees Fahrenheit (otherwise the year 2000, where there are so many known as thirty-three degrees Celsius – bits and pieces that mechanics need PhDs another unwelcome change) with the only to be able to carry out minor adjustments. faint relief being the air (hot) blowing in from Even then they’d be stuck without access to a small side window that could be angled onto computer diagnostics. the driver. I invariably ignored the screams of A further delight was the exceptional my three children sitting on the back seat as vision from the interior. Huge front and their sweating legs became stuck to the vinyl. rear windows provided perfect views of In 1979 I directed the film Breaker all the other vehicles on the road. Modern Morant to considerable critical acclaim. After cars are a definite step backwards in this twenty-one years in the film industry, I was area. Now, tiny windows give the driver an overnight success. the miniaturised panorama of a WWII tank Despite the critical enthusiasm, BM

163 was ignored by vast audiences worldwide. Best Director. It won two awards: Best Actor I found out recently its box-office takings (Robert Duvall) and Best Screenplay. now total $4 million, a figure it has taken I am now moving rather lugubriously to thirty-four years to reach. My film Double the point of this recap of my film career. The Jeopardy, released in 1999, which never had move to the US to make a film clearly meant a single favourable review, took $26 million I would be leaving the adored EH for some in its opening week. time – for some years as it turned out. I knew In Los Angeles, BM screened for only it would rot away if left in a garage untended two days in a decrepit theatre (now closed) so I managed, after an extensive search on Wilshire Boulevard so I was surprised to without the aid of Google, to find a place on be sent a number of scripts from Hollywood the outskirts of Sydney where the car could executives. It turned out the film was be left in the company of other vehicles. showing as an in-flight movie on the LA– The somewhat feral owners of this property NYC run, so my directorial skills were on assured me the car would be started up display to a captive audience. from time to time, and cobwebs and various From the numerous scripts sent to me (no nesting marsupials would be removed. email in those days) I selected a beautifully Tender Mercies was filmed in 1982, another written drama by the playwright Horton American film followed, and I didn’t return Foote, Tender Mercies. I found out only a to Australia until sometime in 1986. The day couple of years ago that this simple story, after landing I managed to find my way out set in Texas, of a country-and-western singer to the bush-car resting home. The EH looked and his girlfriend had been turned down a bit grimy, but there was no rust and the by a gaggle of American directors – luckily engine started instantly. I drove back to the for me. The film had five Academy Award city, lovingly washed the car, and RE-POed nominations in 1983 including one for me as the glorious two-tone grey duco. (RE-PO was

164 ‘once again, the eh reliably carted my family and me all over nsw.’ the polish of that time; Google tells me it still by a Canadian producer and having no ‘star’ exists.) I was aware that the cost of a couple names in the cast. Jessica Tandy was a stage of years garaging was considerably more than actress, and Morgan Freeman had previously the value of the car, but … I had it back. only had a supporting role in one film. It Once again, the EH reliably carted surprised everyone, myself included, with my family and me all over NSW. We often nine Academy Award nominations. It won visited my uncle’s farm near Coolah, NSW, four, including Best Picture (1989). where the EH proved to be the master, Despite an improvement in my financial having such high clearance, of the miles of situation, I was not prepared to contemplate pot-holed roads, bush tracks, innumerable returning the EH to the outback farmyard gullies, and even paddocks strewn with logs for abandoned cars. I had, after all, been and rabbit warrens. directing essentially art-house films and not A couple of years later I was off to America the blockbusters that would have ensured again, this time to direct Driving Miss Daisy, the yacht, the house in Elizabeth Bay, and another small-scale drama with, like Tender the holiday villa in St Tropez. Mercies, a cast of only three significant roles. With a lot of hesitation, I acceded to Again, it was predicted that this low-budget my father’s entreaties to leave the car with film would sink without trace. Instead, it him while I was overseas. At least there was rose without trace: being modestly financed a garage at my parents’ house at Kurrajong

165 Heights, about fifty miles (aka eighty the numerous ‘non-serious’ ones as the kilometres) from Sydney, so I wouldn’t fault of other idiots behind the wheel. He be paying out thousands of dollars a year even classed as ‘non-serious’ the time he while in America. The drawback was that drove well over the speed limit the wrong my father was a truly shocking driver and, way down a one-way street and hit another like all terrible drivers, was quite convinced vehicle head on. Amazingly, no one was that he was the sole person on the road who hurt in either car, which he saw as justifying drove well. Ever since a horrific trip to a his assertion of a “minor accident”. boat race at the age of ten – during which His licence had been revoked a number the police had booked him three times of times, but he assured me he had it back for speeding – I refused to travel in a car once again. I actually doubted, and still when he was driving and, some years later, doubt, that this was true, but weakly gave forbade my three children to let him drive in to his ultimate argument that he would them anywhere, no matter how he pleaded. be driving nowhere but three or four miles It was true he was now car-less in up the road – a quiet country road – to the Kurrajong. (My mother, who had died bowling club and back again. Apart from about a year previously, had put her foot an occasional beer, he was not a drinker down about him being behind the wheel of so there was, I knew, little chance that he anything with an engine some time prior to would plunge over a cliff while inebriated. this sad event.) In fact, he even had trouble If alcohol had been added to his already walking and imperiously refused the use of tenuous grip on driving skills, I would have a cane to help his balance, preferring to fall been forced to park the EH once again with over regularly. the feral caretakers. He pointed out, in his defence, that he’d After some months in America, I had to never had a serious accident and dismissed return to Sydney for meetings. As our house

166 was rented out, I checked into a hotel at the childhood. They all quickly resembled airport for the duration of my brief visit. The mobile rubbish tips, were never washed, moment I entered my room I dived to the and had endless mechanical problems phone to call my father in Kurrajong. I had through neglect. spoken to him a couple of times while in This time a voice on the phone told Los Angeles; he assured me tersely that the me the number had been disconnected. I Holden EH was running perfectly and being began to panic. Had he suddenly died? Was cared for faultlessly. I was unconvinced as I he lying on the living-room floor, unable remembered various cars of his from my to move? Or, most likely, had he simply

eh special – the eh was produced from 1963-65 167 ‘the eh was parked outside, not in the garage ... it seemed to be in one piece.’ failed to pay the phone bill, just as he had My father was sitting on a sofa watching habitually ignored any envelopes with little an AFL football game. He greeted me transparent windows all his life? Plagued by casually but just went on watching. This the various possibilities, I immediately set wasn’t really surprising, as AFL and cricket out for Kurrajong Heights in a rented car. matches were his main interests. He bought It was dusk when I arrived at the house, every available newspaper every day and but I could see that my mother’s formerly never threw any of them away (rooms in well-tended garden was a weed-infested the house were piled floor to ceiling with shambles. The EH was parked outside, not in papers dating back to the late 1930s), but the garage and, in the gloom, it seemed to be never read anything except the sports pages. in one piece. The lights of Sydney glimmered Current events were of no interest to him, in the distance, but the house itself was in to the extent that when he was called up darkness. Now very apprehensive, fearing into the army in 1939, he was astonished to the worst, I went to the front door. It was hear a world war was looming and had to stuck, though partially ajar, and the glass was make enquiries to find the nationalities of smashed. Unable to move it, I went to the the antagonists. side door leading to the kitchen. It opened The house was in darkness for the simple easily, and I walked through into the living reason that all of the light bulbs had blown room. The TV was the only light source. and none had been replaced. He intended

168 to do this, he assured me rather waspishly, on baked beans and ice-cream and washed and in the meantime could easily find his his clothes by getting into the shower fully way around at night with a torch. dressed, although without shoes. He soaped I slept that night in the musty spare room his clothes, rinsed them off, then draped and rushed outside early to look closely them over the living-room sofa to dry. They at the EH. It was free of the minor dents never really did dry completely, and he that usually characterised his cars, but the simply put them back on again, damp. If seats were full of newspapers and a few old there was an Olympic Games for eccentrics, sweaters. On its exterior, there was still no my father would definitely have won the rust, just plenty of grime. The windows were gold for Australia. filthy and the two-tone grey duco was oddly A couple of days later I returned to mottled and discoloured. I never succeeded the house and, despite his protests, took in finding out how this had happened in the the EH away. In fact he protested a lot less six months or so I’d been away, though I than I expected, so I suspect that the local realised the car had never been parked in the policeman had seen him driving and issued garage as it was too full of old newspapers to a warning to desist. allow this. A few miles down the road, somewhere I called my sister, now living in near the town of Richmond, I found a car Melbourne, and told her that we would have wash and drove through it. I then emptied to arrange to move the old bloke (although the seats of the old newspapers and bits only five years older than I am as I write this) of assorted rubbish, mostly wrappers for into a retirement village because he could chocolate bars. Prompted by an odd smell no longer cope alone, despite his fervent I looked under the driver’s seat and found but delusional claims to the contrary. The a vast pile of Kentucky Fried Chicken final straw was when I realised that he lived bones. I knew my father was addicted to

169 this delicacy, and I suppose I shouldn’t have again when I had to return to America to been surprised that he considered putting work on my next film. This time I decided the bones under the seat more sensible than I had to sell the car. My international career throwing them into a bin. had moved from non-existent to sporadic, Once the car was clean, inside and out, it and I suspected, barring a one-hundred seemed to run more smoothly. I had noticed per cent critical disaster, I could be out of over the years that cars always seemed to do Australia for quite a few years. this, though it makes no logical sense. I contacted a valuation service run by Back in Sydney, I contacted an out-of- the NRMA and was totally stunned to be work actor of my acquaintance who I knew told the car was worth only around $400. I had a car re-spraying business on the side. pointed out that this was no old wreck but an He did a far better job than I expected, impeccable vehicle. It made no difference. It probably because he had realised the car- was reiterated to me that $400 would be the spraying business was far more profitable best I could expect. than thespianism. I even toyed with Over the years I have sold many cars, dispensing with the gunmetal grey in favour usually because of overseas travel, and of brighter colours, but the actor/sprayer every one of them had been meticulously insisted that would take too long and he had maintained: my old VW (my first car); little time as he was expecting a major role to my Citroën DS (sold because patriotic be coming his way etc. etc. Australians bravely threw stones at it during The EH was now, unlike my father, in the French bombing tests in the Pacific); showroom condition. There was no rust, my Jaguar; my Subaru; and the Mercedes the engine ran like new, and I could see the I bought in Adelaide while filming Breaker admiring glances as I drove around the city. Morant. I realise now I must be one of the However, a disposal question arose once few people who is so scrupulous. I read a

170 newspaper article that insisted that most when the occasional EH (I always look for cars in used-car yards have some disastrous the numberplate EH599) passes my field fault that has necessitated their sale. A used- of vision, although reason tells me my car, car salesman told me once in a moment of now over fifty years old, is probably rusting rare honesty that a good test when buying away unhappily or has been compacted into is to switch on the car radio. If it is tuned to a metal oblong. a classical station such as ABC FM, then the My father went to an old folk’s home car is most likely to be in good condition. near Geelong. He seemed happy there. A rock station or talkback program is a He died quietly about a year later, shortly warning sign to look for an alternative after watching an AFL game on TV. He was vehicle. seventy-nine years old. Unwilling to give away my beautiful, I’m now driving a 2002 Lexus, a first- gleaming, mechanically perfect EH for rate car, but without the magic of my $400, I offered it, as a gift, to a young cousin EH. At seventy-three, I am still directing who had recently moved to Sydney from films and operas, though I seem to spend Brisbane. On the day I went back to the US a lot of time going to the funerals of my he drove me to the airport in it. I’m always contemporaries. being told I’m not the sentimental type, but At Bills Garage in Balmain, where the there were tears in my eyes as I lifted my case Lexus is serviced, I have noticed, a few from the boot and walked into the terminal. times, a flawless EH: the same model as mine I never saw the EH again. but more vibrantly coloured. Enquiries My cousin reported that he drove the revealed that it’s owned by a lady who has car for some years then disposed of it. I no intention of selling. The garage owner don’t know the details and urged him not is under instruction to call me the moment to tell me. I still tremble with excitement that she decides to dispose of this gem.

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