Gross Misconduct (film)

Plot

At an all-girls academy in Australia, a married philosophy professor, Justin Thorne, attracts a fervent admirer in one of his students, Jennifer Carter.

Daughter of the school's headmaster, Jennifer is driven by a passion for the professor, practically throwing herself at him. Thorne resists repeatedly, but finally yields to temptation. Jennifer, feeling rejected later, accuses the professor of a sexual assault. A journal she has been keeping, fantasizing about a lover, makes it appear that she and the professor have been carrying on a long affair, placing Thorne's reputation and future in grave danger.

Cast

Story and production

The film was based on the play Assault With a Deadly Weapon which was written in 1969 by Lance Peters. It had been suggested by a 1955 scandal in Hobart, where university professor Sydney Orr had been sacked from his job on grounds of gross misconduct. Gross Moral Turpitude, Cassandra Pybus' book on the Orr case which also emerged in 1993, gives a very different reading on Orr from Peters' and this film's. She writes that "in the Orr case... it was almost universally accepted... that an academic who seduced a student should be dismissed. He did. He was."

The movie was the first film to be produced by PRO Films in Australia, a subsidiary of R.A. Beacker & Co. It was shot at various locations around Melbourne, including The University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Magistrates Court and Queen Victoria Market.

Box office

Gross Misconduct grossed $489,598 at the box office in Australia.