TV mini series review - "The Last Outlaw" (1980) **1/2 (Ep 1-2)

 Ian Jones and Bronwyn Binns had a huge hit with Against the Wind so Channel Seven ponied up for another historical miniseries... the tale of Ned Kelly. It didn't do as well ratings wise -but then Ned Kelly stories are never that popular. The material is too problematic - he's too half-good half-bad I think.

This has Crawfords factor all over it - the same old actors (Gerard Kennedy, David Bradhsaw), the bad Irish accents and beers, the on the nose dialogue... but quite skilled story telling.

Ep 1 - a slow ep, with Ned (John Jarratt) going to work for Harry Power (Gerard Kennedy). A lot of women with Irish accents putting their hands on hips. Cornelia Frances in Man from Snowy River 2  -- that sort of vibe. Elaine Kussak is Kate Kelly. It's clear Kelly had a knack of getting into trouble - being apprenticed by bushrangers, getting involved in passing messages and scuffling with cops.  Hall, the cop who arrests Kelly, was played by Steve Millichamp, who was the tubby cop at the beginning of Mad Max. Paul Mason has charisma as George King. It's also clear the authorities like giving him a hard time. It ends after the famous Kelly fist fight.

Ep 2 - Kelly meeets his gang. There's lots of greeting people. This builds up to the massacre at Stringybark Creek. The Kellys suffer and also bring a lot of it on themselves. Steve Bisley always looks as though he's going to do something interesting as Joe Byrne but never does. He's stuck with the same accent acting as the rest. Kaarin Fairfax has X factor. Sigrid Thornton has the beauty but is more conventional.

Book review - "Coopers Creek" by Alan Moorehead

Really enjoyed this. Didn't learn that much new but Moorehead is a good writer apart from the racist dismissial of Aboriginal Australians. The tragedies and complexities are well conveyed.

Book review - "For the Term of His Natural Life" by Marcus Clarke

 The strengths

- so much based on truth

- descriptive writing

- spectacular set pieces: the escape of John Rex on the blow hole, the horror of the cannibal trek, the marooned trio

- gutwrenching small scenes: the suicide of the boys

- some of the characters: sadistic Frere, John Rex the cad, his devoted wife

The weaknesses:

- dodgy plotting

- too many escapes and recaptures

- apart from the marooned sequences and towards the end Dawes doesn't have much life - neither does the girl

Movie review - "Adam's Woman" (1969) **

 A number of movies were made here in 1969-70 several with American money - Ned Kelly, Color Me Dead, etc - but none hit. This is a convict era melodrama with Beau Bridges, in the grand tradition of Alan Ladd in Botany Bay, as a convict determined to escape.

He flees with James Booth but is captured in bed with Tracy Reed (Booth manages to stay free). Bridges negotiates his freedom with Governor John mills who wants convicts to marry female convicts. Even though Bridges has time left on his sentence and wants to escape Mills lets him marry a wife - this ssection is very unconvincing. He picks Jane Merrow who gives the best performance in the film. They go and live on a property and this film turns into a two hander with them going through the tropes - he spots her swimming naked, there's shenanigans with a horse,they try to farm, she's feisty.

Bridges feels contemporary but you get used to him after a while. The main problem is that there's no sexual tension between him and Morrow - he's lechy and she's clearly traumatised from sexual assault.

"If you want me to keep my hnds off you, you stop looking so damn much like a woman," says Bridges in what I think was meant to be romantic.

Later on Bridges tells Harold Hopkins who is having marriage trouble with Helen Morse - they're another convict couple and she keeps charging him money for sex - "that a woman is like a good dog you've got to treat her right."

The other problem is the story lacks narrative drive. Bridges wants to escape but when he and Merrow settle there's farming montage stuff. James Booth turns up being bush rangy but then he disappears. Then all these other convict couples turn up and it's like "what's the story here". Then Booth turns up and knocks out Bridges and tries to manhandle Merrow and Bridges and Merrow get together... and there's still more than half an hour to go.

Then the film becomes about John Mills trying to prove the success of his plan against forces of businessmen like Peter O'Saughnessy. And they hold a dance/celebration and Booth has to appear again and there's a big violent shoot out which doesn't seem real. A lot of it doesn't.

The photography is beautiful and it was shot in Australia. I liked John Mills and Andrew Keir (a soldier who has a man crush on Bridges) and it was fun to see Aussies in support roles like Helen Morse (horny convict), Harold Hopkins, Tom Oliver, Clarissa Kaye, and Roger Ward as a flogger.

Fascinating that it exists. Also that Americans who normally keep the story cracking got bogged down. This goes over too long a period of time. Too much of it doesn't make sense. Like Mills really bends over backwards for Bridges. I wish they'd brought back Tracy Reed's character. But they have too many characters.

A mess. Ineptly made. But it has its pleasures.

TV review - "Eureka Stockade" (1984) ***

 A time in Australian TV that seems so long ago - the historical mini series period, when budgets were healthy and everyone well paid. This was a follow up to A Town Like Alice and wasn't as successful and it isn't hard to ascertain why. Adaptations of the Eureka Stockade fall into the same trap - trying to recreate history rather than dramatise characters.

So there's a lot of actors in fake beards and fake accents. The cast is incredibly strong but it's like there's this cover painting of in authenticity.

Too much of the drama is repetitive - there's two Irish women who give inspirational no nonsense talks to their men (one, Carol Burns is very good), there's two Irish man who makes speeches. The third lead woman (Amy Madigan!) sings songs and goes "why are you never home" to boyfriend Brett Cullen (who is the hearthrob of the show, and quite good - he was on The Thorn Birds and I presume got the gig that way). 

There are no real characters here, just beards, hats, accents, and speeches. Bryan Brown has dynamic charisma and his accent is fine, but the character he has to play is... feisty Irishman I guess. Bill Hunter is also a feisty Irishman, only more horny.  Rod Mullinary hams it up in a beard and German accent. The English governors act through their beards and moustaches and say things like "we can't let the miners get away with it".

As with the 1949 I think the dramatists were seduced by the colour and movement and apparent drama of the characters (Lalor had a romance and lost an arm... that sounds cool in theory) but couldn't bring them alive as people. Rather shamelessly they throw in a down syndrome character; it's got to be said, those scenes felt actually moving.

The second half is better as events kick in and the miners start fortifying and characters become less important. There is decent action (though for some reason the Kanopy copy I watched cut out the battle). And the story is interesting. I just wish it had been better.

Book review - "Stormy Petrel" by Rex Rienits (1963)

 This was a radio play then a TV serial then a novel so the material is thoroughly road tested. Rienits was a good, solid writer - better at structure than at dialogue but he knew how to dramatise. This one focuses on two men - Bligh and MacArthur - but has juicy support characters like fair weather Johnston and drunken judges advocate. It also has female representation with Bligh's daughter who loses a husband but finds love, and MacArthur's wife (whose part should have been bigger but at least she sticks up for her husband).

Rienits has great empathy for both Blight and MacArthur - Bligh is doing the Right Thing and is brave and kind but is also a terrible politician, cranky and officious, you can easily see why he would annoy people; MacArthur is greedy and power hungry but is given many chances to state his case. The arguments and conflict are clear, the world of Sydney at the time is skilfully evoked.

The character of Griffith the secretary who loves Mary is very effective- this is good soap and this was a great read.

Movie review - "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" (1978) ****

I can't get over the fact  people were surprised this didn't make its money back. It actually did quite well at the box office considering its subject matter - but it was expensive.

A marvellous film though. Powerful. Incredibly well made. Better on second viewing because you know a time bomb is coming.

Tommy Lewis is heart breaking as Jimmie - so cheerful. So smart. And he explodes.

Angela Macgregor is wonderful with her prematurely middle aged face and low rent nature. Ray Barrett is terrifying as the vicious, rapist cop. Liz Alexander is the picture of smug middle class ness. Ruth Cracknell is wonderful. Actually everyone is good. Maybe Tim Robertson's accent isn't so crash hot. Bryan Brown pops up as does Arthur Dignam, Ray Meagher, Peter Sumner.

There's actually not a lot of violence in it. But when it happens it breaks screen taboos - Jimmie kills old ladies, young girls, a baby.

This is a masterpiece.

Movie review - "Manganinnie" (1980) **1/2

A film made with love. It's heart is in the right place. Beautiful locations. The two leads are very good. It is a little dull. A lot of trudging around. There's some sort of pirates in the third act but they're not in it very long.

It has an achingly painful subtext because you know Manganinnie's whole tribe is going to be wiped out. Yet the story on screen lacks drama - it needed another character or something. And it felt like a cheat somehow that Manganinnie could return the girl at any moment.

Full of beautiful moments like singing for the dead girl. But there aren't enough of them.

Movie review - "Eliza Fraser" (1976) ** (re-watching)

Endearing in its way that it just wants to entertain. It's not very good but its heart is in the right place. It didn't need to cost as much money as it did - traipsing around the dunes and what not really could've been done anywhere.

The English cast definitely weren't worth it - I mean, yes, Trevor Howard is a great actor but he looks unwell and they could've gotten Frank Thring. John Castle is fine, but was he a name. And Susannah York is poor. Eliza needed to be a lively vixen - I don't think Wendy Hughes, the original choice, would have been perfect, though she would've been better than York; I think someone with lower class sparkle, like Jackie Weaver, would've been better. Or - don't laugh - Abigail. The way the story is constructed Eliza doesn't have to do much acting.

Part of the problem is also Williamson's screenplay which I think in its heart is more a theatre piece. It keeps changing focus on who the lead it - John Castle gets this intro, then he vanishes while the Fraser's go on the boat, then John Waters is given all this time and he vanishes, and Eliza/York doesn't do much except commune with the aboriginals. Then there's this duelling stuff between Castle and George Mallaby, and then the fight comes between Castle and Noel Ferrier, and Eliza is so passive. I wasn't sure how different Castle and Waters were meant to be - I mean Castle was a rogue, but wasn't Waters a convict, and there was Noel Ferrier...

Ugh.

They should have combined Castle and Waters' characters. Or  made them more different. Given Fraser/York somewhere to go  -started her as prim and moved her to raucous or something.

But it looks good and it's fun to see people like Bruce Spence and Dennis Miller turn up.

Movie review - "Don's Party" (1976) ***1/2

I saw this as a teenager and it was too young to see it. Being older I get it more though it is very much a piece of its time and place.

It's been beautifully cast in the most part. John Hargreaves is perfect as Don. Ray Barrett is older than him as Mal which is a little jarring but he's superb. So too are Graham Kennedy (what a dramatic debut!), Pat Bishop (making wonders with her role, in what is the best female part because she's got that terrific scene with Don/Hargreaves), Candy Raymond (a knock out but also very good), Veronica Lang, Graeme Blundell, Kit Taylor (again doing great work with a not particularly deeply written part). Claire Binney seems a little out of depth in what is not a great role; Jeannie Drynan has probably the worst part, sulky Kath - she does what she can, but her final outbreak isn't that  terrific. Harold Hopkins isn't quite right as Cooley - probably better than Paul Hogan would have been (though props to the boldness of that casting). Jack Thompson really should have played that part.

Some of this is tremendous. The camaraderie, the silliness. Beresford keeps it moving fast, locates the action around the house but sparks it up with sex, nudity, pace, different rooms, a swimming pool, some scenes outside to start off with, a cameo from John Gorton and Beresford himself.

Some scenes are awful such as the women sitting talking about how the men are in bed. The bit where they throw Binney in the pool feels awkwardly non-consensual. There's a bit too much male nudity though that is true of the time. 

Candy Raymond is amazing - she should have done more. Had at least a Wendy Hughes level career. Too sexy, maybe? The name? Kennedy is so touching. The gropy/sexist nature of the male characters is softened by casting actors who didn't give off a very sexual vibe (Kennedy, Hargreaves, Blundell, Barrett).

Play review - "Don's Party" by David Williamson (1971)

Much mocked and you get get why with its hard-drinking sex pest baby boomers, but it's full of energy and life and a real feeling for a time, place and people, particularly men. Don, the school teacher dreaming of the great Australian novel, a big fish in a little pond, full of thwarted dreams and incompetent adultery; Mal, the management consultant, grasping for money and sex and dreaming of politics; Cooley the sexual predatory, full of wit, vague artistic pretentious, driven by bitterness of his youth.

Those are the big three - the others are more defined by one trait, and I guess Williamson doesn't really have time, and at least the characters are very individual: Simon, the awkward Liberal; his wife Jody, another Liberal who discovers the joy of swinging; Kath, who is bitter and... actuallym just bitter; Jenny, probably the best female role, lonely, forever pregnant, burying her sadness in purchases; Susan, the groovy bisexual; Kerry, the sexy artist into free love (I think Williamson encountered a few of these women when at an impressionable age and it changed him forever); Evan the dentist who is... jealous and... that's it.

The background of the play is moving, the author is unflinching about his class and kind. I appreciate it now more than I did at uni.

Play review - "Rupert" by David Williamson (2013)

Williamson, thank goodness, tries something different - a look at the life of Mr Murdoch, done in a cabaret style. It skips by - it's a greatest hits account of Murdoch's life and Williamson isn't didactic - Rupert comes out of it well, a greedy, idealistic buccaneer. 

Fun cameos from people like Frank Packer. It skims the surface rather than really examines its subject. The research feels like having read a few books and it might have had more impact had it dealt with Murdoch's relationships a bit closer.

But it is great to see Williamson push himself for a change.

Unsung Aussie Filmmakers - Grant Taylor: A Top Ten

Grant Taylor (1917-71) should have been the biggest Australian film star in the world. He had it all: looks, talent, charisma, a relaxed masculinity, sex appeal, likeability and a star part in a big fat hit. But while he had a long, distinguished career he never quite made it as a star. Stephen Vagg looks at his career.

1) Dad Rudd MP (1939)

Taylor was a Pom whose family emigrated to Australia when he was young. He drifted around for a bit, working in the merchant career and having a decent career as a boxer, before deciding to try his hand at acting in the late 1930s.

Australia had a small, yet decent industry at the time - but it had a chronic short of male juveniles i.e. handsome lunks who could play the romantic male lead. If they were any good they tended to go overseas (Errol Flynn, Frank Leighton) or they were from overseas and just here on a brief holiday (Billy Rayes, John Longden) or they disappeared mysteriously at sea (Brian Abbott, who no kidding disappeared at sea sailing from Lord Howe Island to Sydney).

So Grant Taylor's complete lack of experience didn't bother Ken G Hall looking for someone to play the juvenile in Dad Rudd MP, the fourth in his Dad and Dave franchise. Taylor had looks, swagger and charm, albeit a hairline that was already receding. He was a man. His performance was well received and he was launched as an actor.

Clip from the film is here - https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/dad-rudd-mp/clip2/

2) Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940)

Taylor was promoted to lead for his second film, Charles Chauvel's look at the 1917 Battle of Beersheba by the Australian Light Horse. It was a great role - Red Gallagher got to brawl Poms, sing in a nightclub, romance a French girl in a towel, get captured by Germans, ride horses and save the day. Because it was an Australian not Hollywood film his character even got to have sex before being married.

The film - joyous, exciting, enthusiastically Australianising Hollywood tropes - was a huge success locally and overseas. It also launched the career of Taylor's co star, Chips Rafferty, but Rafferty was very much a sidekick - the film was Taylor's. There had been other notable leading men in Australian films - Snowy Baker, Errol Flynn - but it was really Taylor who was the first tough Aussie star type, that would be so exemplified by Rod Taylor, Jack Thompson, Mel Gibson and Bryan Brown.

It has been said a Hollywood career beckoned for Taylor - though I've never read of any hard offers. But World War Two intervened. Taylor joined the militia and his career never regained this momentum.

A talky clip from the film is here - https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/forty-thousand-horsemen/clip2/. Some of the best bit, the charge at the end, can be seen here - https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/forty-thousand-horsemen/clip3/.

3) 100,000 Cobbers (1943)

Like most actors in the armed services, Taylor was allowed time out to appear in propaganda shorts. Easily the best one was 100, 000 Cobbers, directed by Ken G Hall, a look at civilians joining the army, which is so slickly made that one wishes it could have been a full length feature. Taylor gets to do scenes with the leading female juvenile of the time, Shirley Ann Richards, and they make a fantastic team. Richards soon afterwards went to Hollywood and had an okay career in American films as "Ann Richards", a sort of back up Greer Garson for MGM. Taylor stayed behind.

A complete copy of the film is here. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F01301/

4) The Rats of Tobruk (1944)

Chauvel arranged for Taylor to be released from the army to star in this unofficial follow up to Horsemen, with Rafferty returning as a best friend and Peter Finch thrown in for good measure. I'm not quite sure what Taylor did during his war service but it was having its impact already by the time of this film - Taylor looks puffier, more balder, less enthusiastic. He's still pretty good, just not as good as in Horseman - like the film itself really, which was a commercial disappointment.

The US trailer is here https://archive.org/details/TheRatsOfTobruk-UsTrailer

5) Eureka Stockade (1948)

Taylor got out of the army in 1946 but struggled to recover his career momentum. Admittedly there weren't many films being made around this time but there were some such as Smithy (1946), a biopic of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, for which Taylor would have been an ideal leading role candidate..., but the only serious contenders appear to have been Peter Finch and Ron Randell (who got the gig).

There was also Chauvel's Sons of Matthew (1949), where the lead role again would have been perfect for Taylor (he was attached to the project in 1945 when it was known as Green Mountain), but it went to Michael Pate.

The McCreadie brothers made two melodramas, giving the lead roles in both to Charles Tingwell. Ealing Studios made The Overlanders (1946) but gave the lead role to Chips Rafferty, and the male juvenile part to Peter Pagan. Then they did Eureka Stockade (1949);  Taylor would have been perfect for Peter Lalor but director Harry Watt wanted Peter Finch and was forced to use Rafferty; Taylor has a support role.

What happened? Why did Taylor go from a leading man to support player in such a short period of time? Did he deteriorate physically too much? Look too old? (He was only around 30.) Difficult to deal with? Did he charge too much money? (That may have been a consideration for the very long film shoot of Sons of Matthew.)

Another reason may have been in the late 40s Taylor became in great demand as a stage actor. This meant he would have to go on tour with shows, which made being available for films more difficult.

Nonetheless it feels a great shame that such a charismatic star actor type did not play more leads. In hindight, he should have gone to England around now like Taylor's co star Peter Finch did. But he elected to stay.

6) Inland with Sturt (1951)

The Australian government held a festival to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Federation. Part of this involved a re-enactment of Charles Sturt's row down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers. (Not very well remembered today, mostly because no one died heroically). This was done by a troop of Duntroon graduates and two actors fit enough for the job - Grant Taylor, who played Sturt, and Rod Taylor (no relation) as his off sider. The re-enactment was a huge success, greeted by thousands along the way, and was turned into a short film. Rod Taylor was a similar actor in many ways to Grant - tough, two fisted, "masculine" type, fond of a drink yet capable of sensitivity. It would be Rod Taylor who would have the far greater international career.

A newsreel clip of the trip can be seen here - https://commerce.veritone.com/search/asset/8866998

7) Captain Thunderbolt (1953)

Taylor did play one more lead in a feature film - a biopic of the famous bushranger, Captain Thunderbolt. An action adventure story with a vaguely left wing slant, it struggled to find distribution.

The trailer is herre - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkdFUO7lTfc. Taylor looks to be in good shape so it's a mystery people didn't think of him more for lead roles around this time. Sure only one or two films were made, but there were some done for which Taylor would have been suited like Walk into Paradise (1956) and Dust in the Sun (1958).

8) Long John Silver (1954)

By the mid 50s Taylor mostly worked on stage and radio but he appeared in the occasional film.Hollywood director Byron Haskin hired him and some other Australian actors to play support roles in His Majesty O'Keefe (1953), a Burt Lancaster south seas adventure tale shot in Fiji. Haskin liked Taylor and cast him as a pirate in Long John Silver (1954) a film and TV series that was an unofficial sequel to Treasure Island. Robert Newton played the title role, and Taylor was his sidekick Patch. It was a good chance for Taylor and he's great fun. His son Kit played Jim Hawkins. Rod Taylor was in the film, playing Israel Hands - he used it as a spring board for a Hollywood career but Grant Taylor elected to stay at home.

The complete film is public domain and can be seen here - https://archive.org/details/LongJohnSilver1954. You can also see episodes of the show here - https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Long+John+Silver%22&and[]=mediatype%3A%22movies%22.

9) Funnel Web (1962)

By the late 50s and early 60s Taylor was a big name in Australian theatre, notably for JC Williamsons. He would play the occasional support role in a film like Smiley Gets a Gun (1958), The Siege of Pinchgut (1959) and On the Beach (1959). By now he looked tubby and overweight - the years had not been kind to his looks. He experienced personal tragedy in 1956 when his wife died after a fall. His acting had gotten richer and deeper though, as demonstrated by the reviews for his appearances in some of the (rare) live TV dramas that aired on Australia in the early 1960s. The most notable of these was Funnel Web, a Dial M for Murder type take where Taylor played a murderous businessman. It s frustratingly hard to get copies of these - why can't they just be put on line?

A review of the play is here - https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19620426&id=EX5WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9uUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5526,6215957

10) Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

Eventually Taylor, like pretty much every Australian actor from the 40s to 60s, decided to give it a crack overseas, and he headed to England in 1964. He had some decent roles on TV - including a production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and a part in Gerry Anderson's UFO.

His last feature film performance was as a policeman in the super smart Hammer sci-fi horror classic, Quatermass and the Pit (1967), looking chubby and unwell, as if he was about to have a heart attack.

A Trailers from Hell on the film is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jEO5oHg1sM.

Taylor died of cancer in 1971, aged only 54, looking older than his years. Ironically that year saw Jack Thompson reach TV screens in Spyforce playing a character very much in the Grant Taylor mode - swaggering, cocky, humorous, tough, brave. Thompson would go on to be Australia's leading star of the 70s until, ironically also like Taylor, he prematurely shifted into character roles, in part because he put on weight. Someone like Peter Finch or Bryan Brown, who kept the weight off, remained a leading man for much longer.

It was tough for Australian actors to make it in movies in the 40s, 50s and 60s, but many of Taylor's contemporaries did it - Ron Randell, Chips Rafferty, Peter Finch, Charles Tingwell, Rod Taylor. Was it a lack of ambition? Something else?

Nonetheless  he left behind one great star performance, and for that Australian film fans should be grateful.

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.

Book review - "Nemesis" by Max Hastings (re-reading)

I was struggling to get through a book on the Norwegian Campaign so I read this to be reminded of what a really well written military history was like. It's an excellent account of the last two years or so of the War in the Pacific. Some of it is familiar - Leyte Gulf, MacArthur, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the atomic bomb, Slim in Burma - but Hastings makes it seem fresh.

There's also chapters on areas not as familiar - such as the strikes and malaise that plagued Australia in the second half of the war (we are unable to confront this as a nation - it's too touchy because it gets hijacked by cultural warriors on both sides and it shouldn't), but also the war in China (still crucially downplayed by Western histories), the Russian invasion of Manchuria (so much pointless death), the tale of the B29 and Curtis Le May, the submariners (who were the ones who really won the war). A superb book.

George MacDonald Fraser's memoirs get quoted a lot.

Book review - "Making Headlines" by Chris Mitchell (2016)

Exasperating, thought provoking, compulsively readable. I found myself wanting to throw my book (well, phone - I read it on kindle) across the room but I kept reading. Mitchell has a massive ego and is a surprisingly mediocre writer (in terms of craft... in his defence he probably didn't practice that much during all those years as editor) and has the prejudices one expects in a survivor of News Limited, but makes so many decent points: he's over snippy about the ABC but Fairfax has become a toilet and doesn't know his market. Some of his claims as to the greatness of The Australian are laughable (particularly about impartiality) but at least it tries to be a good paper and has broken some stories.

I actually wouldn't have minded more show biz and sport especially considering News Limited's influence in those areas as well. For instance there's barely a mention of Super League war. There's fascinating insights into the Murdochs - Rupert's comfort with graziers near Yass, Lachlan's pro-gun crim-hating, James' progressiveness - and also politicians: Abbott and Rudd in particular.

Come to think of it Mitchell's memoir is a lot like The Australian - smart, thought provoking, bigoted, deluded. You wish he/it wasn't so biased/lunatic it could be a genuinely great.

Book review - "Coral Sea 1942: Turning the Tide" by Richard Freeman

Solid account of the famous naval battle, the first time the Japanese were stopped, really, on the water during World War Two. Technically the Japanese lost less than the Allies but the Japan failed in their overall goal, i.e. to invade Port Moresby. The battle was vital for Australia - we didn't play that massive a role in the battle, although we had ships there... they were waiting for the Moresby invasion force which never came. Freeman says that the force could have proceeded after the battle, but doesn't elaborate... one of several frustrating things about the book. I would've liked more maps and talk about intelligence operations. But some of this is very fine, such as the loss of the Lexington.

Book review - "The Heroes of Rimau: Unravelling the Mystery of One of World War II's Most Daring Raids" by Lynette Silver (1991)

If you want a book on Operation Rimau, this is the one to read - an exhaustively researched, brilliantly gripping account of one of the great epics of the war. If just one person had gotten back from Rimau alive, it would have been made into a blockbuster film, surely, for the material is so magnificent - even more so than Operation Jaywick which, while an amazing success, was a relatively drama free mission with not one shoot out.

Rimau was non stop action - 23 desperate men on a mission to blow up shipping in Singapore, hijacking a junk and dressing as natives, the mission goes pear shaped but they manage to succeed in sinking some ships then flee for their lives: shoot outs on islands, drownings, suicides, heroic last stands, pirating junks, overlooked by rendezvous subs, betrayed and/or helped by locals, being experimented on by Japanese army doctors, going mad with malaria, getting agonizingly close to safety but having dashed at the last minute...

It's page turning stuff - with the underlying sadness that not one made it back. Ten managed to be captured by they were all executed after a sham trial - again, agonisingly close to Japan's surrender. This makes it a truly tragic epic and very moving.

This book isn't just limited to Rimau - there is a recap of Australia's campaign in Malaya, the flight to freedom by Ivan Lyons (a mini epic in itself involving the hijacking of a vessel and sailing it to Ceylon), a recount of Jaywick, plus a recap of some disastrous operations by Australian special forces in Timor (more mini epics which should be better known... Z force men being captured and forced to broadcast messages luring more special forces to the island).

It really is enthralling stuff, full of heroism, brutality, and all-to-easy-to-believe stupidity. The research is ground breaking, the narrative highly involving. A modern classic.

Book review - "Killing the Tiger: The Truth About Operation Rimau" by Peter Thompson and Robert Mackie (2001)

Operation Rimau is one of the true epics of Australia's Pacific War - I've become a little obsessed with it lately. It was a famous failure, yet it involved such courage: 23 men on a mission to attack Singapore Harbour, a sequel to Operation Jaywick; it's rarely a good idea to do a sequel for a top secret mission, though things needn't have turned out as badly as they did. Admittedly the team were busted by a patrol boat shortly before the actual assault was to begin - this sort of risk was unavoidable - but they managed to get to the harbour and sink some shipping, and most of the team made it back to the rendezvous at Merapas Island. The real stuff up came when the commander of the sub sent to pick them up decided to go hunting vessels to sink instead and didn't follow their orders to wait around. You can make an arguable case for the sub commander but still... it was a bit rough, men died (although some made it as far as Timor before being captured).

This is a solid account of the mission. It's put in context of the whole Pacific War, including a reprise of the fall of Singapore and Operation Jaywick. I admit I was hoping to have more on the mission - descriptions of the islands, conditions, personalities and fire fights involved. Still, it's a good read and got the blood stirring.

Movie review - "The Korean War" by Max Hastings (1988)

I've become a big fan of Hastings work - he has an eye for the big picture of war, the strategy and key players, but also an old journo's eye for a personal story, and dramatic incident: the peasants, pilots, mechanics. He's a conservative but not silly - justifiably angry at a lot of what went down: idiocies from the North Koreans who started it, then the Americans who fought back so well but then pushed it too far, the lunatics who wanted the bomb (especially MacArthur who covered himself with glory via Inchon then almost caused World War 3). He argues the war was ultimately justifiable, just far too long - if only the US had the courage to stop at the 38th parallel, then the Chinese the same. (This presumably informed American activities during the First Gulf War - the sensible one.)

Even though this was written towards the end of the Cold War it's fascinatingly apt about lessons for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars - the danger of fighting a technologically poor but tough enemy on their home turf in unforgiving climate. Look at this quote (it relates to Vietnam but it's still apt:

The political difficulty of sustaining an unpopular and autocratic regime; the problems of creating a credible local army in a corrupt society; the fateful cost of underestimating the power of an Asian Communist army. For all the undoubted benefits of air superiority and close support, Korea vividly displayed the difficulties of using air power effectively against a primitive economy, a peasant army. The war also demonstrated the problem of deploying a highly mechanized Western army in broken country against a lightly equipped foe... Yet because it proved possible finally to stabilize the battle in Korea on terms which allowed the United Nations--or more realistically, the United States--to deploy its vast firepower from fixed positions, to defeat the advance of the massed Communist armies, many of the lessons of Korea were misunderstood, or not learned at all.

It's an excellent comprehensive history: causes, big personalities (of which MacArthur was the best known but also Truman, Ridgway - who comes out of this very well, the dodgy and brave Koreans), a Chinese point of view, POWs, air force, navy, Allies (including us - Kapyong gets a brief mention) the battle of Imjin River and Choisin Reservoir, the shockingly poor performance of US troops at the beginning of the war and the beginning of the Chinese offensive, how close the Chinese came to winning, all the nationalities (Turks were fantastic fighters apparently), how the war revived Japan, the climate, the pointlessness of the two year stalemate (due to fights over POWs).

It was a fascinating war - not as epic or easy to understand as World War Two - but a fight worth doing and remembering and it's an excellent book.