Movie review - "Heritage" (1935) **

I so wanted this film to be better than it was because its ambition is so endearing - to make an Australian historical epic.

And it has some good things - the photography by the Higgins' brothers is beautiful. There's some great locations, and memorable bits, like Governor Phillip having a banquet with little food, the female convicts coming off the boat. There's a central dramatic situation which is fine - a man falls for a woman but he is promised to someone else; the woman dies, and the man raises her baby... I mean that's solid soap.

But it's very amateurish - clunky dialogue, like Governor Macquarie talking about a street that he wanted name after him, awkwardly constructed scenes. Much of the acting looks like bad community theatre.

The biggest debit are the two leads - Franklyn Bennett and Peggy Maguire. Both of them look the part - which is presumably why they were cast. But Bennett is as stiff as a plank, and is called on to do too much. In fairness he doesn't have a great character to play - in his first iteration he's torn and noble; in his second he's a stick in the mud. 

Maguire is pretty and spirited but awfully clunky. Maguire would evolve into a decent screen performer... and in fairness another Chauvel discovery, Errol Flynn, was stiff as a board in his first movie for Chauvel... so maybe Bennett would have come through in the long run. But he makes watching this a hard slog. Ugh, he's so bad.

Margot Rhys is the third lead - the Other Woman. She's a bit better than the other two. Stronger value comes from support players - Frank Harvey as Governor Philip and Joe Vali as basically Joe Vali.

It is historically fascinating but a lot of it is unpleasant. There is an aboriginal attack on a farmhouse, shot like an Indian attack in a Western  - and I know such things did happen, occasionally, it was just a shame this is the only real depiction of aboriginals in the whole film. In the weird last act set in the 1930s Maguire turns up as a funky aviatrix but Bennett tells her her job is to follow her man, and... that's what happens. Again, typical of films of the time but still... I liked her flying planes more!

Anyway it is an unusual film. Overly ambitious - it tries to do too much, and loses sight of the personal drama that makes these sort of movies work. Chauvel would learn his lessons and do better with Sons of Matthew.