Such a great idea and amazing start, with all the excitement sucked out of it via treatment.
- unrealistic casting
- wishy washy goal of convicts
- confused motivation other convicts (why does Victor Maddern go along with everything)
- wet performance from Neil McCallum
- doing absolutely nothing with Heather Menzies
- making the convicts too unscary
- not raising stakes
The last official Cinesound film - shorts, and Smithy did follow, but Smithy was made for Columbia. Sad because this is so slick and confident.
You do sense boredom from Hall with comedy. The firemen sequence is outstandingly funny. The Laughing gas scene not bad. Other stuff not as good - Dad telling Ossie Wenban the birds and the bees, Dad charming snobs at fancy dress... these seem like retreads of Dad and Dave Come to Town.
The film copies a lot of that - mum's inspirational speech. Alec Kellaway is back and just as gay.
Hall seems more interested in spectacle and Hollywood drama - Dad and Webster fighting over the dam, a crooked political machine smashing up operations a la Mr Smith Goes to Washington (Aussie politics is very corrupt here), trying to stop a dam flooding, a romance between charming Yvonne East and Grant Taylor (slim, handsome, balding, terrific). The backprojection of the dam. All the extras running to vote. There's even a little song and dance at the end where people celebrate Dad's victory.
East and Taylor are a sweet team. Also very sweet is where Dad and Mum discuss their old romance.
Barbara Weeks is in it as a man trap American but she's hardly a threat. (This feels very "Frank Harvey" this plot. The political machine plot feels very cribbed from Hollywood especially Capra.)
I've got it - they should've just made Chips play Dan McAlpine again and give him a family and plop them in the middle of the Eureka Stockade. The hot daughter could've romanced a digger and a cop, make the historical people background figures.
Grant Taylor is probably best remembered today (if at all) for his film appearances - Forty Thousand Horsemen, Rats of Tobruk, Captain Thunderbolt, Long John Silver.
But in the 40s through to the 60s he would've been better known in Australia for his theatre work. He did a lot of touring for JC Williamsons in things like Two of the Seasaw, Teahouse of the August Moon, Woman in a Dressing Gown and Dial M for Murder. His physical presence would have helped.
He also appeared in a few Australian plays. This was not common at the time.
These plays:
*Dark Enchantment by Max Afford
*Pirates at the Barn by Eleanor Witcombe
*Curly on the Rack by Ru Pullan
* Slaughter of St Teresa's Day by Peter Kenna
*The Bastard Country by Anthony Coburn
*Shipwreck by Douglas Stewart
*The Break by Philip Albright
Most of these were with the Trust. Still, that's not bad. Apparently he was particularly great in Bastard Country.
The good stuff is good. The photography is beautiful - gorgeous in the way so many Aussie films are. The sets are terrific - the production design, costume, etc. Looks a treat.
I liked the acting. Grant Taylor, Peter Finch and Chips Rafferty are a fine trio - Finch much better than Pat Twohill. Full of culturally interesting touches.
A lot of the film's flaws were understandable. Such as:
* Opening scene at the homestead. You've got visuals, sheep, horses, etc. Set up Taylor and Pauline Garrick's history. Quite adult. Taylor a walking red flag. But... you could cut it out. Doesn't impact story. Betty Bryant was integral. Not Garrick. I'm sure Chauvel discussed maybe having an Italian woman character in the siege. That would've possibly been too melodramatic for how he wanted to do it. They should've just focused on the nurse romance. I would've kept Garrick stuff but had her die. Have Taylor coming home or going to visit and she carks it. So he's got a death wish. Would've given it some point.
* No progressive story. A scene of vignettes. You need a relationship to tie it together. Love story would've been fine. Kill Garrick and have the love story between the nurse... Taylor doesn't want to love again. Finch loves the nurse. Triangle. Problem though: they evacuated the nurses.
*Could have a rival within the camp. A Pole or Brit. They learn to respect each other. Maybe too late.
*I get desire to have comedy. But it clunks. Joe Valli alright. George Wallace not he looks so old.
*Make it clearer why the siege was important. Maybe this wasn't an issue in 1944. But surely it could have been dramatised? People preparing to evacuate Cairo or something? They could've dramatised a scene or two with the Germans, surely?
*The ending PNG sequence feels very tacked on, as it was. But apart from the photography it is memorable for one thing - when Taylor kills the Japanes soldier. They fight, he shoves the guy's head under water. Holds it there til the guy drowns. Brutal. Tough, Depicted uncompromisingly.
Short version of the feature but it holds - decently directed by Cecil Holmes, full of action and pace, well thought out by Creswick Jenkinson.
The main debit is the lack of characterisation - the bushrangers are tough that's about it, and the romances are perfunctory. This no doubt would have been addressed in the longer version. The black face is unfortunate.
Grant Taylor is very good as the tough bushranger - this was just before he switched to character acting. Charles Tingwell is his BFF. The most screentime goes to the cop chasing them, played by Harp McGuire. The satire of the rich is fun and the anti immigrant rhetoric they spout very striking for the time.
It hypes history but tries to incorporate a lot of it - there is an Aboriginal woman (just Tingwell's girl not Thunderbolt's), there were rumours he survived, he did have an accomplice, etc.
For a long time this movie was dismissed in histories of the Australian industry. Its reputation has risen in recent years. It's a frustrating film to watch because the central idea is brilliant and there's good things about it.
The opening is brilliant - an ambulance racing through Sydney (love the location footage) with anxious staff and driver and a bandaged patient. They get pulled over, then have to take a genuine sick person, and wind up at a hospital.
But instead of building the tension by keeping the gang stuck at the hospital there's a cut and bang they are at this safe house. How did they get there? Why have them go there? Why not get them on the boat.
They get on the boat and it breaks down, so you don't actually need that opening sequence. They arrive at the fort... take it over. Aldo Ray is so apologetic about it, it robs the piece of tension.
Some tourists arrive on the island. They don't seem to be in much danger of being busted. Then Grant Taylor comes and it gets exciting. But then Aldo Ray lets him go. His co conspirators are justifiably annoyed.
Ray's character is so dumb - always whining about wanting a new trial. We never find out if he's innocent or guilty by the way - the harsh copper says he's guilty and he's not disproved. He's too nice, no threat. He goes a little mad at the end.
There's no other threat among the group. Victor Maddern's character should have been harsh but he's amiable. Makes no sense he's along. Why not make him bad? How are they going to get off the island?
Grant Taylor is in this as a cop who gets chased off the island then shoots Maddern. Watching this I felt maybe Taylor was justifably annoyed he wasn't playing that role. Taylor had a strength and gravitas that the hijackers could have used. They should have shot some people.
I liked the other Aussies. I guess I would but does anyone like the Brits in the cast: Heather Sears in a typically poor Ealing female role, Carlo Juistini has someone who seems as if they're going to be interesting but isn't, Neil McCallum is very poor as Ray's brother, Barbara Mullen as the mother who just whimpers (why not have her be a sex bomb who wants Ray or something.
Kenneth J Warren is a very good booming voice commissioner - I hadn't heard of him before. Gerry Duggan is great too. Ray might have been fine had he been given something to play.
The location is tremendous. Sydney Harbour looks fantastic. It does build effectively.
I just wish they'd kept the original idea of making it about Germans in World War Two, and used more Aussie actors who would've been better.
Half a classic - fantastic characters and set up, great Aussie dialogue, and enough incident (daughter wants to be a nun, man just out of prison goes after mother and daughter, the boys drink, guns in the drawer). There's two men just out of prison, too much time is spent on Uncle Paddy's monologues. I feel it would've been better if Oona or Thelma had shot Horrie. But a solid piece of work. Grant Taylor was Horrie in the original production.
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.
