| The Empty Beach | |
| Director: | Chris Thomson |
| Producer: | John Edwards Tim Read |
| Based On: | novel by Peter Corris |
| Starring: | Bryan Brown John Wood |
| Music: | Martin Armiger Red Symons |
| Cinematography: | John Seale |
| Editing: | Lindsay Frazer |
| Studio: | Jethro Films Pty Ltd |
| Distributor: | Hoyts |
| Runtime: | 89 minutes |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | A$1.8 million[1] |
| Gross: | AU $34,341 (Australia)[2] |
The Empty Beach is a 1985 Australian thriller film starring Bryan Brown as private investigator Cliff Hardy.
Cliff Hardy iinquires into the disappearance of a beautiful woman's wealthy husband from Bondi Beach. Based on the 1983 novel by Peter Corris of the same name.
In the early 1980s Bryan Brown was attached to star as Cliff Hardy in an adaptation of an earlier Corris novel, White Meat. This was to be adapted by Corris, directed by Stephen Wallace and produced by Richard Mason. However no film eventuated. Then John Edwards and Tim Read acquired the rights to the series and approached Brown again.[3] He had played the character in a 1980 Albie Thoms feature film Palm Beach phrior to the filming and release of The Empty Beach.
To coincide with the film release the film's title song was released as a single that summer of 1985 by Marc Hunter (of Dragon) with backing vocals featured from Canadian-Australian based singer Wendy Matthews. Music video of the single also had some moderate TV airplay which features both Marc Hunter and Wendy Matthews.
Corris wrote the first few drafts and was unhappy with the final adaptation, although he liked Bryan Brown's performance.[4]
The film performed poorly at the box office in Australia although it sold widely around the world.[4] There were plans for Brown to appear in further Hardy adventures but this did not eventuate.[3] Ten network first screened the feature film at 8.30pm in early October 1986 on a Wednesday night with a repeat screening again in early 1990s at a much later time-slot and has not screened commercially since. The Empty Beach is also awaiting a dvd or blu-Ray release.