Best of all was John Goodman’s agreement to play the visiting Chicago mobster, Tony Testano. “When David suggested John, I thought we’d never get him because he’d be far too busy,” recalls Brown. “But luckily, we share an American agent and I asked him if he could get John to at least read the script. He called me back and said John loved it and wanted to do it. Then it was just a question of working out his availability. It was a real bonus for us having him, because he’s such a great actor and he was perfect for the role – a Mafia hit man but at the same time a very likeable character.”

In the years between his first meeting with Brown and the cameras rolling on Dirty Deeds, Caesar had made another movie, Mullet, and spent a lot of hours researching the crime scene in sixties Sydney. “David had the time to really think about the story he wanted to tell and exactly how he wanted to tell it,” notes Brown. “He did an enormous amount of preparation which really helped to make the shoot a lot smoother.”

The final storyline of Dirty Deeds provides the reason for Tony Testano to come to Sydney: he’s heard the way things are going in this far-distant land and wants part of the action. Ryan, who has his fingers in most of the city’s illegal pies, is understandably reluctant to let him have it.

“Sam Neill as corrupt cop Ray; John Goodman as Chicago Mafioso Tony; and Bryan Brown as Sydney gang boss Barry.

Ryan’s the unofficial head of crime in Sydney in the late sixties,” explains Brown. “He runs the prostitution, the illegal gambling and he also makes money from the legal gambling – the machines – as well. He’s quite a violent character – these people didn’t muck around – but he’s got a wife and he’s got a child. So we see him running around with his kid in his snorkel and goggles. At the same time, he’s getting a dressing down from a bent cop for murdering people in the streets, and his wife’s bossing him around and telling him what to do. The comedy comes out of those situations: it’s fun because it’s a well-crafted piece and the characters are very vibrant.”

The film used some 40 different locations in and around Sydney, with production designer Chris Kennedy scouring New South Wales for period cars and props (although he ended up having to build the slot machines which provided much of Barry Ryan’s income). When it came to the outback scenes, however, Brown - wearing his producer’s hat - initially decided that, just for once, they wouldn’t use Broken Hill, which has become as much a part of the Australian movie landscape as Monument Valley was of the John Ford westerns.

“So many films have been made in Broken Hill,” he says. “That red-dirt outback says ‘Boom, Australia!’: it’s very recognisable. In the story, my character takes the Mafia boys to the outback to shoot pigs. And we really wanted to get out of the city and bring in that landscape. At first we thought ‘Well OK, Broken Hill is fairly obvious: let’s find somewhere else’. But you know what? We came right back to Broken Hill. It’s got exactly the look we needed for the movie and it’s also got the right infrastructure.”

Goodman, who had loved the script and welcomed the opportunity to work in Australia, was not so keen on another part of Broken Hill’s infrastructure: the flies. But he was enchanted by the rest of the location. “We don’t have too many kangaroos hopping around in Louisiana,” he says, “so I enjoyed that.”