This would be the least regarded of Charles Chauvel's sound movies but its far from being his worst made -clearly Chauvel's attempt at making something "commercial", it's a fascinating mess, which is nonetheless surprisingly watchable.
Beautiful Margot Rhys is a female novelist persuaded to venture into Australia's unexplored north west where rumours say a white man has been raised among the locals, whom he rules. Rhys ventures north as part of a caravan, but is kidnapped by an Afghan trader and shipped to the white man (Dennis Hoey), who remarks that he's heard of the white lubra. Rhy has to deal with Hoey's burning passion (he slaps her around at one stage) and singing, not to mention the jealousy of a half-caste woman - who apparently cannot be with Hoey because she is half caste (and we're meant to believe that Hoey hasn't touched local women for fear of miscegination). There's also some opium smugglers plus a missing detective called Peter Radcliffe, whose name is mentioned a lot and who turns out to be as much as hero as Hoey, some rubies, a renegade aboriginal warrior and a drug (with historical basis - see this article).
As George MacDonald Fraser once said about Hamlet, to say this is racist is like describing Hamlet as a family row: although raised by local aboriginals, Hoey is shown to be superior basically because of his white skin and the film is obssessed with miscegination. None of the aboriginal characters are given any dimension, indeed they are lucky to get lines outside of chanting, and in terms of accuracy the thing is a mish mash - the aboriginals depicted were from Palm Island, not the Kimberly, and many will find the villainous witchdoctor characters and so on offensive. Actually many will find the whole thing offenive.
Having said that at least they are real aboriginals not white actors in blackface - Chauvel's documentary background ensures that, and it is always visually striking, with these great faces on the actors. There is plenty of plot and action, with a tremendous climatic battle, and it is all fast paced. Also Rhys goes for a quite sexy nude swim.
Dennis Hoey's physique isn't bad but he's too old and is no Johnny Weismuller - apart from his fine singing voice and white skin it's hard to see what Rhys sees in him. (He's not even that brave). Rhys is pretty and its fun to hear Aussie accents mouthing all the ripe dialogue - it's as if Chauvel was told he could direct the next Tarzan film by MGM and cast all his Aussie mates.
The film is available in the public domain and can be downloaded on the net.
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