Lee Robinson and Chips Rafferty made a string of films in the 50s based on two pillars: Rafferty’s screen presence and exotic locations. This formula served them well for three hits, but then bizarrely they dropped it for this film, their fourth. Rafferty elected not to star, being replaced by the not-very-well-known Ken Wayne (England’s Jill Adams was imported to play the female lead but she wasn’t very well known either). Also, while there is location photography it’s in black and white (why??) and the locations aren’t really that spectacular.
The film starts with a bang – a long sequence without dialogue where policeman Ken Wayne is escorting prisoner Robert Tudawali through the outback when they are attacked by a tribe of aboriginals; Wayne is injured by Tudawali fights them off. Tudawali takes Wayne to a homestead where there is a bit of a cross section of odd types – the nice “squatter’s daughter” type daughter (Maureen Lanagan) of a nasty foreman (Jack Hume), the nasty wife (Jill Adams) of a farmer (James Forest). But then it gets bogged down in melodrama at the homestead – Wayne falls for Lanagan, which annoys her father; Adams gets frustrated when she finds out her husband has arranged a contract which means they’re stuck out in the bush another two years, so she lets Tudawali free. The aborigines gunning for Tudawali attack one night but are fought off. Then Adams tries to run away and almost dies, and you start to think “what is this film actually about? Tudawali or Adams?”
Then Adams is killed and everyone thinks it’s Tudawali – but then Tudawali turns up dead. The killer of Adams turns out to be the local aboriginal farm worker Spider (Henry Murdoch) who killed Adams because he thought it was helping Forest. Wayne chases down Murdoch, who throws himself off a cliff. Then he rides off into the sunset, despite the pleading eyes of Lanagan. “I’m a policeman – it’s a wanderer’s life” he says, though the real reason is he’s probably got a few girls stashed in various homesteads around the countryside. Or a raving queen. But at least Lanagan’s got Forest there – he gives her a look as if to indicate “well, I’m a widower now, why wait?”
Ken Wayne has a relaxed masculine presence and excellent speaking voice, but he’s not a star – he’s a second lead; he definitely doesn’t have the looks of a Charles Tingwell and his chemistry with the pretty Lanagan (another Robinson discovery) is poor. Robinson’s handling of the dramatic stuff is better than it was in King of the Coral Sea and the film has a strong story thanks to Cleary’s original novel. But it feels like the stuff of a telemovie – it lacks the big emotional stakes or production value to be a film.
It’s also not very PC. While Tudawali’s character is brave and smart, there is a horrible scene where Wayne and Adams argue over Wayne having to take Tudawali for a walk like he’s a dog (“he needs his exercise”); after Tudawali escapes Wayne complains that somebody “let him out of the shed” and Tudawali is first scene with a chain around his neck. Actually, thinking about it, the film fits into the white man’s burden genre of adventure filmmaking of 50s British cinema (eg Where Vultures Fly), with its diligent no-nonsense public servant hero trying to do his best amongst troublesome natives and snarly whites. Like Jedda, the guilty black man throws himself off a cliff at the end (though unlike Jedda it doesn’t mean that much because we never got to know Spider that well).
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