Three stars is generous but I am Australian.
The pros
- spectacular production value - it was the most expensive Australian film made until that time, apparently, but a lot of that is up on screen - spectacular sets of the mining camps and settlements and stockade, and teems of extras... it's a shame they didn't re-use the sets for another film or two, or at least re-use the footage.
- I appreciate the effort it went to to get the historical facts right.
- The action sequences are very well done - the attack on the stockade, the murder of Scobie, the miners rioting.
- the photography is beautiful.
- the editing and other technical aspects are first rate.
- Gordon Jackson and John Fernside manage to create living, breathing characters with very little.
- I loved that random bug eyed doctor who cut off Lalor's arm at the end.
- they do show an occasional POC such as one of the Eureka people standing trial and the very occasional Aboriginal.
The cons
- the script isn't great - Harry Watt whinged about Australian writers, justifying importing Walter Greenwood - it goes through the events without managing to dramatise them.
- the characters aren't characters they are people who say speeches - there's no life say in the Chips Rafferty-Jane Barrett romance, Rafferty spouts platitudes (Lalor has been de-Irished), I didn't know what Finch's character was (he just appears as an Important Person - I had to google him)
- Commissioner Rede twirls his moustache but is depicted as being so reasonable (surely motivated by fear out of offending the establishment) about his position it sucks the piece clear of drama (it kind of hints maybe he's interested in Jane Barrett but it's only a hint).
- the only people who seem real are Gordon Jackson, the doctor and John Fernside - Fernside is best because he is a spy, just a good old fashioned villain.
- the miners come across as a bunch of whingers - complaining about having to pay a fee (should they have it for free?), Scobie is a drunken brat who throws something through a window (I mean it was harsh he was killed but he wasn't like this innocent victim).
- it wasn't worth importing Jane Barrett, or any of the cast they brought in, except maybe Jackson - the British cast are dull, lacking charisma and surely had no name value at the box office.
- Peter Finch or Grant Taylor should have played Lalor and Muriel Steinbeck could've played Alicia.
- I barely recognised Grant Taylor, in whiskers as a cop.
Actually they shouldn't have focused on Lalor - that straightjacketed them to history. They should have had a fictitious love story- maybe center around two brothers in love with the same girl or something else simple but effective.
The waste of it gets me irritated at times because it didn't have to cost as much money, be so hokey or have such a miscast star. I get Harry Watt was feeling confident after The Overlanders but not so much that he could leave history - he leant into it. Which is fine, we all make mistakes, but he spent too much money.
Still, there is much to admire about it.
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