WHEN most cineastes talk about Australian cinema of the '70s, they tend to focus on acclaimed films such as Picnic At Hanging Rock or Newsfront. They tend not to rave about, say, vomit-fest The Adventures Of Barry McKenzie, the action extravaganza The Man From Hong Kong, the trippy horror of Patrick or the goofy sexcapades of the Alvin Purple films.

With his visually imaginative, lovingly researched and thoroughly fascinating debut feature, Not Quite Hollywood, Mark Hartley hopes to change all that. The documentary tells the story of these films and many more; the kind cinemagoers in the '70s went to see in their droves but seem to have pushed to the back of their minds.

Brian Trenchard-Smith wrote and directed numerous wild action films, including The Man From Hong Kong and the notorious Turkey Shoot (described by Britain's TimeOut magazine as "Turkey shite, more like"), and is one of many eloquent talking heads interviewed in Not Quite Hollywood. He sums up Hartley's film perfectly.

"On the one hand it's a work of really detailed cinema scholarship," Trenchard-Smith says. "And on the other hand it's a rip-roaring, laughs-and-gasps, boobs-and-bums and, y'know, blood-and-gore popular entertainment. It says this was something of an achievement [in] the early days of the Australian film industry: a bunch of maverick, gonzo filmmakers following their instincts, with a grasp of what was marketable popular culture but with a uniquely Australian flavour."

The world's most famous movie geek, Quentin Tarantino, also features in the film, practically soiling himself with excitement when talking about these lost treasures. But why don't non-geeks and younger viewers who missed these so-called Ozploitation films the first time around know about them?

"They'd been kind of swept under the carpet by the snobs," Trenchard-Smith says. "And the arts-culture history tended to be written by the snobs . . . you know, the professional arts bureaucrats and the critics who wanted to bask in the limelight of high-minded films or great social documents of Australia's past or present.

"They wanted to be associated with art films because they felt that would give them more personal prestige. Whereas we filmmakers [believe] film is film, you know? If you love the process of filmmaking - you love sculpting the drama, telling a story with the camera - the same disciplines, the same challenges are present."

What exactly, then, is Ozploitation?

"Well, first you have to deal with the word exploitation - which inevitably has a pejorative undertone to it," Trenchard-Smith says. "It's saying, y'know, 'People are gonna be ripped off by this movie.'

"Well, certainly there were many, many exploitation movies made worldwide - the Italians specialised in them - that were very derivative copies of successful American films. But among the exploitation movies that were made, there were still examples of films that nonetheless delivered the goods, admittedly on a smaller level. So we who were working with low budgets were thinking, 'How can we still please our audience?' "

For The Man From Hong Kong - in which Asian action star Jimmy Wang Yu and Australia's (literally) one-time 007, George Lazenby, faced off Down Under - Trenchard-Smith stretched $500,000, a paltry budget even in 1975.

"I tried to pack it with the stuff that audiences want in that particular genre . . . what would happen if Bruce Lee went up against James Bond and James Bond was the bad guy. Now, Bruce died - I wrote the story with him in mind - and we had 'Asia's Steve McQueen' take his place.

"I wrote it to a formula: one action scene, one dialogue scene, one action scene, one dialogue scene - and that resonated well with the rest of the world.

"So, Ozploitation was an attempt to channel into that exploitation market that had guaranteed theatre space - admittedly in the grindhouses of the world and the drive-ins or those slightly seedy theatres that I used to visit. We understood what the market wanted but we wanted to make it a little different. And I think we largely succeeded."

Not Quite Hollywood and The Man From Hong Kong screened separately at the always-excellent Popcorn Taxi this month (which lets audiences question stars and directors after screenings), while next month the Chauvel Cinema is showing seven more Ozploitation classics, including Patrick and Trenchard-Smith's Turkey Shoot and Dead-End Drive In. But, even at 62, the filmmaker isn't resting on his laurels.

"Yes," Trenchard-Smith says, smiling. "Somehow, despite being 104, people still come to me and say, 'Can you make us this?' You know, a gay and lesbian cable channel came and said, 'Would you make a gay submarine movie for us? Would you make a lesbian Rambo movie for us?' I said, 'Sure.' "

NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD

Director Mark Hartley Stars Quentin Tarantino, Brian Trenchard-Smith Rated MA15+. Out now. The Chauvel Cinema's Ozploitation Resurrection festival runs from Wednesday to September 24.