Filmmaking couple Nadia Tass and David Parker are selling 14 Lang St, South Yarra, which served as the production office and creative studio for their AFI-winning film Malcolm starring Colin Friels (left).
Prolific Australian filmmaking couple Nadia Tass and David Parker have listed the South Yarra home where they created the iconic gadgets for their cult film Malcolm.
The 1986 AFI Best Picture Award winner, starring Colin Friels, Bud Tingwell, John Hargreaves, Lindy Davies and Denise Scott, won seven other AFI awards that year, including a Best Director award for Tass and a Best Screenplay award for Parker.
Their four-bedroom home at 14 Lang St, South Yarra, is for sale with a price estimate of between $3 million and $3.3 million.
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The residence became a production office for Malcolm and other projects where actors such as Heather Mitchell, Ben Mendelson and Claudia Karvan, plus British comedian and writer Ben Elton – with whom the couple worked on the BBC miniseries Stark – visited, often for rehearsals.
Tass recalled cutting Friels’ hair at the table for Malcolm’s filming and that he also lived in the house for a while, as did Hargreaves.
Parker and Tass have worked together and individually on many award-winning films such as Rikky and Pete and The Big Steal, television series and theater productions.
“With films like The Big Steal, there are certainly scenes where we realized their potential at the dinner table,” says Tass.
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Nadia Tass and David Parker at the premiere of their film Fatal Romantic Honeymoon in 2014. Photo: Zak Simmonds.
The facade of 14 Lang St, South Yarra, seen from the street where David Parker and Nadia Tass tested the cars they used in the film Malcolm.
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Nadia Tass, David Parker and former Victorian Deputy Prime Minister Jim Kennan at the opening of the Melbourne Film Studio in Port Melbourne in 1991, with the famous car split in half in the film Malcolm. Photo: Rob Baird.
Their feature film Amy, in which Rachel Griffiths appeared, won 23 international awards, including multiple gongs at the 1999 Cannes International Film Festival.
And their 2016 film The Menkoff Method starred Noah Taylor, who took time off from filming TV’s Game of Thrones to participate.
In the 1970s, Parker bought the house, consisting of a former ice cream cone factory and a Victorian-era cottage, because it was both an ideal photography studio and a place to stay.
That same decade he photographed bands such as the Beatles, ABBA, AC/DC, Skyhooks and Mondo Rock.
The couple later raised their two sons in the home, which they remodeled in the 1980s and 1990s, adding an indoor pool and spa, plus the upstairs.
There are Baltic pine floors, high ceilings and exposed stone fireplaces inside.
Actor Colin Friels in film Malcolm.
The house stands on a plot of land of 441 m².
Ms Tass joked that they had done “terrible things to their finances”, such as borrowing against the property to help finance films, including Malcolm, in which Friels plays a brilliant inventor who helps plan a bank robbery.
Profits from the film allowed them to purchase the Melbourne Film Studios in Port Melbourne, which they operated until 2009.
Malcolm set pieces created at the house included portable trash cans with attachments such as a gun, a fire extinguisher and a clown head that could blow smoke bombs and cars that split in half for the bank robbery scenes.
“I remember, especially with the shared cars, we would drive them out into the street and try them out,” Parker said.
“We bought these little Honda-Zs, which I think were the smallest car available at the time, and we took all the mechanicals out.
“Then you left with just the body and we sawed it in half with a full-inch angle grinder.”
The swimming pool where the couple taught their sons to swim.
David Parker, Nadia Tass and actor Claudia Karvan at the premiere of their film The Big Steal.
They said the local community had been incredibly supportive of the film, but there were some “quite funny” reactions to seeing the cars split in two.
In addition to their creative efforts. their favorite memories of the home include teaching their sons to swim and spending time in the sun-drenched living and dining areas.
The couple moved out of their home a few years ago and Tass’s mother, who enjoyed working in the garden, lived there until last year.
The kitchen is accompanied by living and dining rooms and an informal dining area on the ground floor.
The garden has blood orange trees and a lemon tree.
The house is on a 441 sqm block, close to Toorak Rd, Commercial Rd and Chapel St’s shops and restaurants, South Yarra train station, Prahran Market, several schools and Fawkner Park.
The house features Baltic pine floors, high ceilings, exposed stone fireplaces and four double doors giving access to the gardens with fruit trees.
Upstairs is the master bedroom with walk-in closet and ensuite, a fourth bedroom, attic storage room and study with balcony.
Richard Mackinnon of Marshall White said most buyers were planning to renovate or build a new family home, or alternatively develop two to three new homes.
The house will be auctioned on December 6 at 10:30 am.
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