A film that means even more to me now because I'm the father of a young girl, and the beautiful casting of Peter Finch is even more effective. It's a mystery how director Leslie Norman stuffed up Summer of the Seventeenth Doll but made such a good fist of this. Having the perfect star of course helps - Finch was never better as the charming, irresponsible drifter who abducts his kid in a fit of pique and is stuck with her.
The Australian outback is beautifully conveyed - the camraderie on the back of trucks, the slang, the casual mateship, the horrible local bullies (Guy Doleman and Lloyd Berrell) threatening Finch at the pub, the loneliness of Nial Maguiness. Charles Tingwell gives Finch a lift in the truck - is his voice dubbed?
Superb performance from Dana Wilson the little girl. Love the moments like her tagging along, and laughing in the rain with her dad, and him carrying her on her shoulders.
Rosemary Harris is lovely as the girl Finch once impregnated. Russell Napier is her dad - he was an Aussie, I wasn't familiar with him.
There is some stuff that I really didn't like. When Elizabeth Sellers the wife turns up wanting her child back... he holds his ground, the kid picks him, then Finch tries to dump the kid with his friends. What a lousy dad. I think they should've made the mum a drunk or something and not into the kid. They do at the end, kind of, but not enough - not when she goes to visit him in the country town. That's the twist at the end but they should've bought it in earlier. She's too sympathetic! She should go with her mother. He's not a very good dad, always dumping the kid outside pubs and in cars and leaving her with people he's just met like Reg Lye and talking about packing her off to boarding school.
Also I didn't like all the fat jokes all the characters make about Tessie O'Shea. They really pour it on.
The film recovers for a decent last act though - with heartbreaking stuff of Wilson chasing after Finch going "dad, dad". And the lovely moment where Finch roots the shop girl (Barbara Archer) who dreams of going to Wagga Wagga and some decent heartbreak when the kid is run over (off screen - they miss a trick).
Oz movie fans will love seeing familiar faces bob up like Bruce Beeby (Finch's lawyer), Frank Leighton (a barman who knows Rosemary Harris), Henry Murdoch (Aboriginal actor in a car).
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