I wish this was better. The photography is beautiful. Gorgeous colours. Memorable visuals... swirling dust - Lewis Milestone clearly had a thing for dust.
The basic idea is strong - Peter Lawford pretends to be the son of Finlay Currie. But Currie is poor... his property is drought ridden and looks terrible... that's no stakes. Why not make Currie really rich? Why not have the guy after Maureen O'Hara be sexy and bad and a real threat to Lawford instead of Chips Rafferty? What is the point of Charles Tingwell's character? Why not use him more?
Maureen O'Hara is wasted - it would have been better had she and Lawford swapped roles. Lawford was alright in support but not as a lead - his voice was too high, his presence too wet. O'Hara just hangs out, soothes Lawford's furrowed brow... they should have given her more to do. Female roles in 20th Century Fox melodramas were often bad - Zanuck was very old school in his depiction of women. I wasn't sure when it was set or why.
Richard Boone is fantastic. There's a fun fight with bullwhips. It's great to see Aussies like Rafferty, Letty Craydon (comic servant in Tall Timbers), Tingwell, and Henry Murdoch.
Milestone says when he got to Australia he wanted to make a different movie and this feels like that - as if he was torn over what sort of movie to do instead of having an overall vision.
No comments:
Post a Comment