The Devil's Playground

Clip 2: ‘The city of corruption’

2 min 17 sec

Taken from the feature The Devil's Playground (1976)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG

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Curator’s clip description

Father Marshall (Tom Keneally) arrives to prepare the boys for a three-day retreat, during which they must observe complete silence. Before they start, he delivers a terrifying sermon about death and damnation, and what the fires of hell will feel like.

Curator’s notes

Keneally has said that his sermon was composed the night before shooting, and consisted of descriptions, from all the cast and crew, of things they had been told by religious teachers during their own childhoods. The scene is played fairly straight, but it has a slightly satirical feel, accentuated by the way the camera creeps closer and closer to the priest as he warms up to his topic.

Paul Byrnes, curator

australian screen