Sweet Talker

The real-life South Australian coastal town of Beachport was initially going to be called "Port Davis" in this picture, but in the end its real name was kept for the film.

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Taylor Hackford served as executive producer on this film. When Sweet Talker (1991) was shot in 1989, the film's star Bryan Brown's wife, Rachel Ward, had appeared about five years earlier in Hackford's Against All Odds (1984).

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Sweet Talker (1991) was the third South Australian film in which actor Bryan Brown played a prison inmate, at least for a time. The previous pictures, both released in the same year, were Breaker Morant (1980), in which Brown's character was imprisoned in a military prison portrayed by Redruth Gaol in Burra, South Australia, and Stir (1980), shot at Gladstone Prison in Gladstone, South Australia, which portrayed the film's fictional "Gatunga Gaol". Although Sweet Talker (1991) was mainly shot in Beachport, in the same Australian state of South Australia, the actual opening correctional facility exterior scenes were in fact shot at Long Bay Gaol in Sydney, in the Australian state of New South Wales.

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The film's end title sequence states that the picture was "filmed in Beachport, South Australia and at the Australian Film Studios, Sydney, Australia".

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The name of the holiday guesthouse run by Julie Maguire (Karen Allen) was "Carinya Guesthouse".

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"Carinya Guesthouse" was not in fact a real building but a set construction built on the seaside jetty of Beachport in South Australia.

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Actors Chris Haywood and Andrew S. Gilbert would later appear together in another South Australian film, Kiss or Kill (1997), in which both played detectives.

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Cecil's (Bill Kerr) nicknames were "Cec" or "Uncle Cec".

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This is one of numerous films in which Australian actor Gary Waddell played a heavy gangster-type character.

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This is the only film written by Bryan Brown, who shared the film's story with Tony Morphett.

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Star Bryan Brown and director Michael Jenkins had previously worked together on Rebel (1985). The two separate pictures were shot about five years apart, but each was first released about six years apart.

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One of at least five films made between the late 1970s and late 1980s in which a character is buried in sand or earth and shown with only his head above ground level. In The Challenge (1982) it was Scott Glenn, whose character Rick spends five days there. The other actors and films were various extras in Caligula (1979), Ted Danson in Creepshow (1982), Bryan Brown in Sweet Talker (1991), shot in 1989, and David Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983).

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According to Scott Murray in the book "Australian Film 1978-1994", this picture "... was mostly shot in 1989, but was in post-production for years. Some scenes were partly reshot and the script was reworked".

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Harry Reynolds's (Bryan Brown) full name was "Harry Joseph Reynolds".

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The original working title of Sweet Talker (1991), whose story revolves around a con-man grifter played by Bryan Brown, was "Confidence". An American Hollywood film, also about a con-man grifter, would later actually use that title [see: Confidence (2003)]. During development, pre-production and then principal photography in 1989, Sweet Talker (1991) was known as "Confidence" throughout the entire production shoot.

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Bryan Brown had previously appeared in two television mini-series written by Tony Morphett: Against the Wind (1978) (two episodes) and The Shiralee (1987) (both episodes), the latter with Brown in the lead role. Brown later appeared in Dear Claudia (1999), about ten years after Sweet Talker (1991), which was shot in 1989 and on which Morphett served as script consultant during production.

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On 13 April 1989, a full-page notice about the making of this film was published in the South Australian newspaper the 'South Eastern Times'. It read: "The cast and crew of 'Confidence' [later renamed 'Sweet Talker'] thank all our friends in and around Beachport for their help in the making of the film and for making us so welcome". This was followed by various signatures from various cast and crew members.

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