Movie review - "Frank Hurley: the Man Who Made History" (2004) ***

Frank Hurley deserves a documentary and this hits the all the main things, but it's a shame the narration wasn't a little less annoying. Going tsk tsk to some doctoring of war photos and criticising him for not taking photos of aboriginals or poor people when asked by the government to promote Australia... that's just silly, and sounds like the nitpicking of an academic rather than someone who understands the filmmaking process. Sometimes too it's just wrong - most of Cinesound's films weren't epics but rural comedies. And they often had hungry people - On Our Selection and The Broken Melody.

There are some great talking heads, most notably Hurley's twin daughters who barely knew him and still wear matching loud floral outfits - they're sweethearts. The photographs and photography remain great. Hurley had an interesting life - I didn't know he came back from World War II nearly broke. Indeed, 55 minutes isn't really enough. But be grateful for what we have I suppose.