Lights, Camera, Action! Luna Park Sydney's History as a Film Set

The summer of 1958-59 saw Luna Park host a world first: it became a film set for the first Australian film made with foreign money. The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, the play written by Ray Lawler was considered a turning point in Australian drama when it was first performed in Melbourne in 1955. It was the first truly authentic Australian play depicting the Australian way of life and using Australian expressions in its dialogue, when Angus & Robertson published it. 

The film rights were bought in 1957 for $US300,000 (an unheard of amount for an Australian drama) by American actor Bert Lancaster’s production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster.

Starring Americans Ernest Borgnine and Anne Baxter, Brits John Mills and Angela Lansbury, the film was renamed Season of Passion, and British director Leslie Norman moved it to Sydney rather than the play’s Melbourne setting.

Filming began on December 29, 1958 at Pagewood Studios in Sydney, then Australia's only major film production centre. It then transferred to Luna Park for most of January, where the entire park was used to recreate the New Year’s Eve scene, with the four main actors and a huge cast of extras. Other scenes were filmed at Circular Quay, on Sydney ferries, Bondi Beach and The Rocks, in what was really the first Hollywood film where Sydney Harbour got to star as a stunning backdrop.

For one scene, Sydney residents around the harbour were asked to leave their lights burning on the last Wednesday of January, 1959, to provide a romantic backdrop to the action. Director Norman, who’d directed Dunkirk and The Shiralee, put an advertisement in The Sun Herald, thanking people for doing this.

Since then Luna Park has starred in many dramas. Notably films like: Our Lips Are Sealed (2000) starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Candy (2006) starring Heath Ledger, Annie Cornish and The Rotor, The Girl from Moonooloo (1983) a musical movie starring Jacky Weaver, Bollywood production Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and the closing scenes of the Australian film Chocolate Oyster (2018).

This blog was created by Helen Pitt, our author-in-residence who is currently writing a book about Luna Park Sydney in preparation for our 90th anniversary celebrations. If you have any interesting stories related to the history of Luna Park Sydney, be sure to reach out to history@lunaparksydney.com - we would love to hear from you!