The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian road comedy film written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The plot follows two drag queens played by Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce and a transgender woman, played by Terence Stamp, as they journey across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named "Priscilla", along the way encountering various groups and individuals. The film's title references the slang term "queen" for a drag queen or female impersonator.

The film was a surprise worldwide hit and its positive portrayal of LGBT individuals helped to introduce LGBT themes to a mainstream audience. It received predominantly positive reviews and won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design at the 67th Academy Awards. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and became a cult classic both in Australia and abroad. Priscilla subsequently provided the basis for a musical, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which opened in 2006 in Sydney before travelling to New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Broadway.

Plot
Anthony "Tick" Belrose (Hugo Weaving), using the drag pseudonym of Mitzi Del Bra, is a Sydney-based drag queen who accepts an offer to perform his drag act at Lasseters Hotel Casino Resort managed by his estranged wife Marion in Alice Springs, a remote town in central Australia. After persuading his friends and fellow performers, Bernadette Bassenger (Terence Stamp), a recently bereaved transgender woman, and Adam Whitely (Guy Pearce), a flamboyant and obnoxious younger drag queen who goes under the drag name Felicia Jollygoodfellow, to join him, the three set out for a four-week run at the casino in a large tour bus, which Adam christens "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert".

While on the long journey through remote lands bordering the Simpson Desert, they meet a variety of characters, including a group of friendly Aboriginal Australians for whom they perform, the less accepting attitudes of rural Australia in such towns as Coober Pedy, and are subjected to homophobic abuse, violence, including having their tour bus vandalized with homophobic graffiti.

When the tour bus breaks down in the middle of the desert, Adam spends the whole day repainting it lavender to cover up the vandalism. The trio later meet Bob, a middle-aged mechanic from a small outback town who joins them on their journey. Before they arrive at Alice Springs, Tick reveals that Marion is actually his wife, as they never divorced, and that they are actually going there as a favour to her. Continuing their journey, Adam is almost mutilated by a homophobic gang before he is saved by Bob and Bernadette. Adam is shaken and Bernadette comforts him, allowing them to reach an understanding. Likewise, the others come to terms with the secret of Tick's marriage and resolve their differences. Together, they fulfill a long-held dream of Adam's, which, in the original plan, is to climb Kings Canyon in full drag regalia.

Upon arrival at the hotel, it is revealed that Tick and Marion also have an eight-year-old son, Benjamin, whom Tick has not seen for many years. Tick is nervous about exposing his son to his drag profession and anxious about revealing his homosexuality, though he is surprised to discover that Benjamin already knows and is fully supportive of his father's sexuality and career. By the time their contract at the resort is over, Tick and Adam head back to Sydney, taking Benjamin back with them, so that Tick can get to know his son. However, Bernadette decides to remain at the resort for a while with Bob, who has decided to work at the hotel after the two of them had become close.

Cast

 * Terence Stamp as Bernadette Bassenger
 * Daniel Kellie as young Bernadette
 * Hugo Weaving as Anthony "Tick" Belrose/Mitzi Del Bra
 * Guy Pearce as Adam Whitely/Felicia Jollygoodfellow
 * Leighton Picken as young Adam
 * Bill Hunter as Robert "Bob" Spart
 * Sarah Chadwick as Marion Barber
 * Mark Holmes as Benjamin Barber
 * Julia Cortez as Cynthia Campos
 * Ken Radley as Frank
 * Margaret Pomeranz (uncredited) as Adam's mother
 * Stephan Elliott (uncredited) as Doorman

Development
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert had originally been conceived by filmmakers Stephan Elliott and Stuart Quin, who were at the time in production of a film called Frauds. They and producer Andrena Finlay initially tried to pitch Priscilla to various financiers at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, but were unsuccessful, and so instead took the film's concept to PolyGram and, with the backing of the Australian Film Finance Corporation, were able to begin production of the film on a relatively low budget of 2.7 million Australian dollars.

Elliott and the film's producers, Michael Hamlyn and Al Clark, agreed to work for $50,000 each, a relatively low fee for filmmakers at the time, while the lack of funding meant that the crew agreed to receive takings of the film's eventual profits in compensation for their low salaries. Due to the involvement of the Australian FFC, only one non-Australian actor was allowed to appear in the film, and Clark initially considered David Bowie, whom he had known back in the 1980s, and later briefly thought of John Hurt, although neither was available.

Casting
In May 1993, after travelling around the Australian Outback searching for appropriate sites to film in, Priscilla 's creators attended the Cannes Film Festival and Marche to advertise their project, hoping to capitalise on the selection of Elliot's first film Frauds, which was "In Competition" at the festival and despite the fact that they had not yet confirmed any actors for the roles. Their primary choice for the role of Bernadette was Tony Curtis, who read and approved of the script, but eventually became unavailable. They then approached John Cleese, who was not interested.

For the part of Tick, they had initially wanted Rupert Everett and for Adam they wanted Jason Donovan. However, at a pre-production casting meeting held at Cannes, Everett and Donovan did not get on well with one another and were found to be openly hostile toward the production staff. In light of this, it was readily agreed that they would not be suitable for the parts and the search for their three leading men would resume. However, Donovan would go on to play Tick in the West End musical adaptation of the film.

After unsuccessfully lobbying Colin Firth to play the role, producers eventually awarded the part to Hugo Weaving. Initially considering Tim Curry for the part of Bernadette, they cast Terence Stamp, who was initially anxious about the role because it was unlike anything that he had performed previously, although he eventually came on board with the concept. Stamp himself suggested Bill Hunter for the role of Bob, who accepted the role without even reading the script or being told anything about the greater concept of the film other than the basic character description, while Australian actor Guy Pearce was hired at the eleventh hour direct from the Australian soap opera Neighbours to portray the sassy but sprite Adam.

Filming
It is striking what an effect the disguise of drag is having on [the actors'] personalities. It makes Guy [Pearce] flirtatious, combative and loud. It makes Terence [Stamp] withdrawn and watchful ("Hello sailor," he greets me warily with his back to the wall, looking like a fallen woman in a '50s melodrama.) It makes Hugo extraordinarily trashy.

Many scenes, including one where Bernadette encounters a butch, bigoted, Australian woman named Shirley, were filmed at the Outback town of Broken Hill in New South Wales, largely in a hotel known as Mario's Palace (now the Palace Hotel), which Al Clark believed was "drag queen heaven". Some small scenes were filmed in the All Nations Hotel. They also decided to film at Coober Pedy, a rough-and-tumble mining town in Central Australia featured prominently in the film. The executive producer, Rebel Penfold-Russell appears as the marathon runner.

Initially, they tried to get permission to film upon the geological formation formerly known as Ayers Rock or "the Rock" (Uluru), but this was rejected by organizations responsible for the monument, such as the Uluru Board of Management, as it would have been in violation of Indigenous Australian religious beliefs. Instead, the scene was filmed in King's Canyon. Dialogue from the scene was rewritten slightly to accommodate the new location.

Post-production
With filming over, the director and producers began editing the footage, repeatedly travelling to both London and to Los Angeles, which had then just been hit by the 1994 Northridge earthquake. On the advice of early viewers, the film was shortened and scenes such as Adam's flashback about his paedophilic uncle were cut out.

Box office
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert took $18,459,245 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $33,634,000 in 2018.

Being an Australian film, not an American-produced Hollywood blockbuster, Priscilla was released as a minor commercial product in North America and other English-speaking nations.

Director Elliott noted that the audiences viewing the film in Australia, the United States, and France all reacted to it differently, going on to state that "At a screening we had for an Australian audience, they laughed at all the Aussieisms. The Americans laughed too, but at different jokes. There is a line where Tick says, 'Bernadette has left her cake out in the rain...' [The French audience] didn't get it, whereas the Americans laughed for ten minutes." Tom O'Regan, a scholar of film studies, remarked that the film actually carried different meanings for members of different nationalities and subcultural groups, with LGBT Americans believing that the film was "the big one that will bring gay lifestyles into the mainstream", while Australians tended to "embrace it as just another successful Australian film".

Critical reaction
On Rotten Tomatoes, Priscilla has a 96% "Certified Fresh" rating based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 7.31/10; the consensus states: "While its premise is ripe for comedy -- and it certainly delivers its fair share of laughs -- Priscilla is also a surprisingly tender and thoughtful road movie with some outstanding performances." Metacritic reports a 70 out of 100 rating, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

American film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times felt that Bernadette was the key part of the film, stating that "the real subject of the movie is not homosexuality, not drag queens, not showbiz, but simply the life of a middle-aged person trapped in a job that has become tiresome." Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert presents a defiant culture clash in generous, warmly entertaining ways." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone commented "In this roaringly comic and powerfully affecting road movie, Terence Stamp gives one of the year’s best performances." Kenneth Turan from the Los Angeles Times wrote "The comic pizazz and bawdy dazzle of this film’s vision of gaudy drag performers trekking across the Australian outback certainly has a boisterous, addictive way about it."

Year-end lists[edit]

 * 7th – Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune
 * 7th – Michael Mills, The Palm Beach Post
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Matt Zoller Seitz, Dallas Observer
 * Top 10 Runner-ups – Bob Ross, The Tampa Tribune
 * Best "sleepers" (not ranked) – Dennis King, Tulsa World
 * Honorable mention – Dan Craft, The Pantagraph