Wikipedia

Street of Dreams (Martin Sharp film)

Street of Dreams is an unfinished documentary film about the musician Tiny Tim and the 1979 Ghost Train fire at Luna Park Sydney, directed and produced by Australian artist Martin Sharp.[1]

Street of Dreams
A view of Luna Park, Sydney, with its signature giant 'face' staring out from between two art deco columns, circa 1982.
Luna Park Sydney, filming location, circa 1980s.
Directed byMartin Sharp
Produced byMartin Sharp, Deanne Judson, Jo Sharp
StarringTiny Tim
Edited byPaul Healy, Marilyn Karet
Running time
107 minutes (Brighton Cut)
CountriesAustralia
United States
LanguageEnglish

Themes and content

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The film firstly features Tiny Tim, showcasing footage of his record-setting, two-hour-and-seventeen-minute professional singing marathon at Luna Park Sydney in January 1979.[2] It tells Tiny's life story, framed around the marathon performance footage, while highlighting his many eccentricities, religious convictions and sexual hangups as captured by Sharp's camera crews in both Australia and the United States.

The film's other major theme is the 1979 Ghost Train fire at Luna Park, which occurred five months after Tiny's visit. Sharp became convinced the two events were somehow linked, and so the film covers the perceived synchronicities and theological underpinnings of the fire while also telling the story of Luna Park in general. As filming went on, Sharp also began to gather evidence, also presented in the film, that the fire was not an accident as had been originally reported but was in fact deliberately lit by associates of Abe Saffron.

Street of Dreams explores all of the above themes - Tiny, the marathon performance, his life in general, the Ghost Train fire, potential causes of the fire and the history of Luna Park in general - in an interconnected, theological way, with heavy Christian motifs and joined by a narrative in which Tiny makes his way through the park's mirror maze.

Post-production and incomplete status

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Sharp obsessively worked on Street of Dreams after 1979. By 1985, an entire room of his Wirian residence was dedicated to the project, which Sharp had custom painted in shades of blue, yellow and pink.[3]

In 1988, a rough version entitled "The Brighton Cut" was compiled at Tiny's insistence so that the film could be shown at the Brighton Festival, with Tiny commenting that Sharp had "maybe made a cult movie which at the very least will survive as a museum piece".[4] This version was played at various other film festivals in the late 1980s and early 1990s and occasionally aired on TV in both Australia and the United States[5][6] though Sharp still considered it a work in progress.[7][8]

In 1989, Sharp told the Sydney Morning Herald: "I think I've got the form there now. It's just a matter of making what's between the beginning and the end flow a bit better". In the same joint interview, Tiny also suggested that the film should centre more on Luna Park and that "more concentration should be held on the nude scenes... (they) should last longer and be heavier".[9] In 1990, Sharp again told the Herald: "People have often said it's two separate films, but I think the challenge is to make it one film. When it's ready, it will let me know. If the worst comes to worst, it will stand as it is now."[10]

Sharp continued to work on the film up until his death in 2013 and never finished it.[11] As of 2024 his estate continue to consider it an incomplete work and have never released it officially, although poor-quality bootleg copies of the Brighton Cut from a VHS transfer circulate online.

In 2014, footage of Tiny's complete Luna Park marathon performance shot for Street of Dreams was released on streaming services as The Non-Stop Luna Park Marathon by Planet Blue Pictures.[12] As of 2023, it can be viewed for free on Vimeo.[13]

Selected cast

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Songs performed by Tiny Tim

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As per the Brighton Cut.

Selections from the Luna Park Marathon

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References

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  1. ^ Tarling, Lowell (2020). Sharper 1980-2013: A Biography of Martin Sharp. ETT IMPRINT.
  2. ^ Healy, Paul. "Street of Dreams (The Brighton Cut)". Obscured by Clouds. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  3. ^ McClymont, Kate (30 May 1985). "My Style: Martin Sharp". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  4. ^ Portus, Martin (21 May 1988). "Tiny Tim's Big Comeback". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  5. ^ "TV listing". Detroit Free Press. 17 October 1993. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  6. ^ Harris, Paul (21 February 1992). "Street of Dreams - TV listing". The Age. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  7. ^ "The Street of Dreams". TCM. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  8. ^ Falconer, Delia (2020). Sydney, updated paperback edition. Simon & Schuster.
  9. ^ Cockington, James (28 April 1989). "Tulip tribute". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  10. ^ VIsontay, Michael (7 June 1990). "Tiptoe in Tiny Tim's dreams". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  11. ^ Yardley, William (8 December 2013). "Martin Sharp; distinctive pop artist shaped rock imagery". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  12. ^ "Press release, 2014" (PDF). Planet Blue Pictures. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
  13. ^ "The Non-Stop Luna Park Marathon". Vimeo. Planet Blue Pictures. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
  14. ^ Blake, Charlotte. ""The Harbor of Love" (1911)". Mississippi State University. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
  15. ^ Harrison, Charles. "Love's Ship". Library of Congress.
  16. ^ Lewis, Will A. "Take Me Out to Luna Park (Just for Fun)". Trove. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
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