After stumbling with Eureka Stockade Ealing tried to repeat the success of The Overlanders by copying that film more closely. It's a trek across the outback once more, again headed by Chips Rafferty, with a comic relief Englishman (Tommy Trinder, who is top billed), another shy Englishman (well, Scot - Gordon Jackson) who has a romance with a spirited beautiful blonde woman with long hair (Nonie Piper), plus a cute kid (Nicky Yardley), a pioneering couple (here Rafferty is one), a bad egg (Charles Tingwell), Henry Murdock as an Aboriginal stockman.
The opening repeats Overlander sequences - rolling rocks down mountains, sheep instead of cattle, wagons getting stuck, Pommy migrants joining the trek, etc
Then it becomes a pioneer family trying to make a farm story. And the rest of mostly clashes with Aboriginals, with a little bit of romance.
There is a lot of good stuff here. The photography is beautiful. It seems to have been mostly shot on location. Location work very good. The acting is excellent. Rafferty gets to play a tougher character and is effective. Jackson is amiable. Piper doesn't have much to do (she cocks a gun in one sequence) but is pretty enough. Superb stuff involving Aboriginals. Trinder is engaging - he gets to do the bulk of the heroic stuff rescuing Yardley. He copped criticism for the part but I liked him, felt he was well integrated. The mum makes some speech.
The ending is a siege - Aboriginals attacking a homestead. Very very briefly. So briefly you sense Ralph Smart Then Michael Pate leads a cavalry to the rescue (called by Tommy Trinder).
A fascinating combination of audience pleasing stuff - cute kid, scenery, an attempt at a happy ending with Rafferty and an Aboriginal shearing. The film veers away from other things which might have made it more popular - the romance is really really short, scenes like Trinder and Murdock getting help aren't even shown, there's little suspense in the siege. Tingwell's character should die dramatically but he doesn't.
Some of it is depressingly realistic. Pate's matter of fact acceptance when Tingwell kills a black. The fact the authorities simply support Rafferty's claim.
How to make this work? I think there needed to be a proper white villain who whipped up trouble and died. Yes less realisstic but ti would've ended the piece with some catharsis. You've got Tingwell who is racist and bad but redeems himself with a brave waterhole dash and is allowed to live. Tingwell should've played another farmer, a really racist one - play out love triangle with Piper and Jackson. Have the family consist of two daughters, so one can hook up with Trinder.
Look a fascinating movie. Thought provoking.
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