Jazz City

For some reason, Sydney has become the ‘one-stop-shop’ for Jazz age, period productions of the roaring ’20s.
The latest in the Underbelly series; Underbelly: Razor (utilising real ex-cons in key roles) is set in the period and will air later in 2011, maybe as early as August – leaving enough time for extras to keep their fedora hats on for the production of Baz Luhrman’s 3D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Finalising the principal cast is Joel Edgerton, whom Luhrman has cast in the role of Tom Buchanan. He’ll join Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as narrator Nick Carraway, Carrie Mulligan as his wife Daisy Buchanan and Isla Fisher as his mistress Myrtle Wilson.

The amazing ensemble will be calling Sydney home for three months from August of this year as filming is expected to take around 17 weeks.

Luhrman’s stylised take on the period will no doubt have a vastly different look on the roaring 20′s to his Underbelly predecessor. His visual flair notwithstanding, Gatsby is set on Long island, New York and Razor is a tale of vicious crime, vice and corruption on Sydney’s ‘Blood stained streets’ according to the official teaser, drawing heavily from the lavish photographic exhibition and subsequent book, ‘City of Shadows: Sydney Police Photographs 1912-1947’ from 2007.

Luhrman’s previous period film, Australia was seen by famed critic Roger Ebert as his “Australian Gone with the Wind“. Incidentally, Fitzgerald was involved in script development for the original Gone With The Wind, released in 1939 – a year prior to his death.

The cinematic legacy of the Fitzgerald family doesn’t stop there. Robert Redford has just completed a film based on the life of F. Scott’s first cousin Mary Surratt entitled The Conspirator. Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States Federal Government when she was tried and hanged for her role in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Surratt is portrayed in the film by Robin Wright.

The Great Gatsby is currently in Pre-Production.
The Conspirator is released wide on August 18.
Underbelly: Razor is scheduled for third quarter 2011 on the Nine Network.