In one of the films highlights, Jack's loyal Aboriginal friend, Yacka, dives 250 feet over a precipice into a river to rescue Jack. The film was made for a mere £500 and shot near Sydney in the bush and in Gavin's own improvised studio in Waverley.
Director: John Gavin
Production Company: John F Gavin Productions
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Agnes Gavin
Photography: A J Moulton
Cast: John Gavin (Jack Throsby), Agnes Gavin (Bess Wilmot), Carr Austin (Colonel McGregor), J Harris (Sandy McDougal), F Henderson (Trooper McGuire), Miss Daphne (Bertha McGregor), H Harding (Captain Danvers), Wilton Power (Harry Wilmot), H Benson (The Governor), A Delaware (Yacka).
1911 - Moora Neya, Or The Message Of The Spear
On a station west of the Darling, an evil overseer makes sexual advances to the station owner's daughter, but Harry Earl, the girl's lover, gives him a thrashing. The overseer urges some local Aboriginal people to kill Harry in his remote hut to get his revenge. After strange corroboree, the tribe departs to capture Harry, but one responsible tribesman, Budgerie, manages to alert the station men by writing a message on a spear. The stockmen ride to the rescue and save Harry just as the Aboriginal people perform a 'Death Dance' around him.
Advertisements for the film claimed that this was 'the first film introducing the Aboriginals in their native haunts and war dances'. The director and his crew travelled to the central north of New South Wales to film scenes with what was referred to as 'one of the wildest tribes of the Never Never Land'. One advertisement described some of the 'dangers' braved in making the film, including “inducing” the “blacks” to face the camera, and trying to stop the “natives” becoming too “excited” by the filming.
Director: Alfred Rolfe
Production Company: Australian Photo-Play Company. 1500 ft.
Cast: Ethel Phillips, Stanley Walpole, Charles Villiers
1912 - Cooee And The Echo
“Cooee And The Echo” is the story of a young miner who sets out to avenge the murder of his brother. He falls in love with the daughter of the mine manager, but finds that his rival for her affections is the man who killed his brother. The happy ending is only reached when a 'faithful' Aboriginal boy (Charles Woods) rescue the films hero.
In one of the films highlights, Jack's loyal Aboriginal friend, Yacka, dives 250 feet over a precipice into a river to rescue Jack. The film was made for a mere £500 and shot near Sydney in the bush and in Gavin's own improvised studio in Waverley.
Director: Alfred Rolfe Production
Company: Australian Photo-Play Company. From the play by E. W. O. Sullivan Photography: A O Segerberg. 3000 ft. Cast: Ethel Phillips, Stanley Walpole, Charles Villiers, Charles Woods
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Silent Era.
1913 - Blue Gum Romance
“Blue Gum Romance” is the first narrative film produced by the Fraser Film Release and Photographic Company. The movie was set in the timber industry area near Gosford on the central New South Wales coast. The action included a corroboree, with Aborigines played by white boys from Gosford. “A Blue Gum Romance” marked the beginning of a series of narrative films produced intermittently in the five years between 1913 and 1918, the year of the company's demise.
Director: Franklyn Barrett
Production Company: Fraser Film Release and Photographic Company
Screenplay, Scenario, Script, Photography: Franklyn Barrett
Cast: Tien Hogue (heroine), Tom Middleton (hero), Douglas Lotherington (Aboriginal chief)
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Silent Era.
1913 - The Life Of A Jackeroo
Made immediately after “A Blue Gum Romance”, “The Life of a Jackeroo” used not only the same locations and basically the same cast, but also some of the same incidents, including an Aboriginal corroboree. The main difference between the two was that the second had a stronger plot, and occasionally made excursions into different surroundings.
Director: Franklyn Barrett
Production Company: Fraser Film Release and Photographic Company
Screenplay, Scenario, Script, Photography: Franklyn Barrett
Cast: Tom Middleton (the Englishman), Tien Hogue (the squatter's daughter), Ruth Wainwright (the actress).
Resources: Internet Movie Database.
1913 - Moondyne
Based on the novel by John Boyle O'Reilly, “Moondyne” tells the story of a convict, Joe, in Western Australia assigned as a labourer to a sadistic settler, Isaac Bowman. Joe escapes and takes refuge with a group of Aboriginal people who tell him about a secret mountain of gold. Later recaptured by Bowman, Joe lures him into the bush with the promise of taking him to the gold. The “king” of the Aborigines, Te Mana Roa, shows them the mine, but later Bowman seizes an opportunity to knock down the king and load his horses with gold.
Director: W J Lincoln
Production Company: Lincoln-Cass Films
Screenplay, Scenario, Script, Photography: Maurice Bertel
Cast: George Bryant (Joe Moondyne), Roy Redgrave (Isaac Bowman), Godfrey Cass (Te Mana Roa)
Resources: Internet Movie Database
Article: More Australian than Aristotelian: The Australian Bushranger Film, 1904-1914
1928 - The Romance Of Runnibede
Dorothy Winchester returns from school in Sydney to her family's cattle station to find two men eager for her hand in marriage - the station manager, and the Sub-Inspector of the Queensland mounted police. Believing that Dorothy is their 'Great White Queen', returned from the dead, some local Aborigines kidnap her. The rivalry of the men for Dorothy's love is resolved when one of her suitors save her life.
“The Romance Of Runnibede” was designed for overseas audiences, containing maps and explanatory titles about Australian geography. The Aboriginal 'headhunters' are stock figures from Hollywood African adventures. The corroboree is unintentionally hilarious, resembling both a conga and an Indian war dance.
Director: Scott R. Dunlap
Production Company: Phillips Film Productions
Producer: Frederick Phillips
Titles: Gayne Dexter. From the novel by Steele Rudd
Photography: Len Roos, Cliff Thomas
Editor: Cecil Hargraves
Assistant Director: Eric Wilkinson. 6000 ft.
Cast: Eva Novak (Dorothy Winchester), Gordon Collingridge (Tom Linton), Claude Saunders (Sub-lnspector Dale), Roland Conway (Arthur Winchester), Dunstan Webb (Goondai), Marion Marcus Clarke (Miss Frazer), Virginia Ainsworth (Mrs Conley)
Resources: Internet Movie Database.
Available from: ScreenSound Australia
1928 - Trooper O'Brien
A film about family, which follows many sub-plots and incorporated two long action sequences 'borrowed' from The Kelly Gang and Robbery Under Arms. One sub-plot in this movie followed a romance between Glen O'Brien's Aboriginal friend, Moori, and a black 'flapper' whom he meets in the city. In this film, the Aboriginal people are grotesquely broad comic caricatures, both played by white actors in blackface.
A review from the Sydney Morning Herald, 13 April 1928, said that the film that was 'sadly lacking' in any dramatic insight: 'The story wanders vaguely on; the actors key themselves up to tremendous emotional stress over situations that are not essentially dramatic; and there is no sense of proportion whatever.'
Director: John Gavin
Production Company: Australian Artists Company
Producer: Herbert Finlay
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Agnes Gavin
Photography: Arthur Higgins
Editor: John McGeorge. About 5500 ft
Cast: Merle Ridgeway (Winnie), Gordon Collingridge (Glen O'Brien), John Gavin (Sergeant O'Brien), Charles Stanford (John Alston), Nellie Ferguson (Mrs Alston), Ernest Lauri (John Alston Jnr), Sybil Atholwood (Mrs Alston Jnr), Jimmy McMahon (Glen O'Brien as a child), Reg Quartley (Moori as a child), Betty Taylor (Winnie as a child), Cis Peachy (Mrs O'Brien), Martin Kelly (Detective Burns), Will Harris (Moori), Violet Elliot ('the budgeree flapper'), Walter Vincent (Reverend Matthews), Carlton Stuart, William Thornton.
Resources: Internet Movie Database
Available (in part) from: ScreenSound Australia
1936 - Uncivilised
“Uncivilised” tells the story of a high-society authoress, Beatrice Lynn, who travels to rugged northern Australia to investigate the story of a primitive Aboriginal tribe ruled by a white king, Mara. On the way, Beatrice is kidnapped by an Afghan trader who takes her far into the ‘jungle’, where Mara buys Beatrice from the Afghan and tries to win her hand. After many adventures, including a battle with an Aboriginal killer, Beatrice falls in love with Mara and decides to remain with him in his jungle domain.
This film is an action adventure, with its network of sub-plots and very little reality. The film has no readily identifiable Australian content, comic-book like desert and jungle settings, and Aboriginal people depicted as sinister jungle-dwellers who performed highly choreographed dances and rituals.
Director:Charles Chauvel
Production Company: Expeditionary Films
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Charles Chauvel, E V Timms
Photography: Tasman Higgins
Editor: Frank Coffey, Mona Donaldson
Art Director: James Coleman
Special Effects: George Malcolm
Music: Lindley Evans
Choreography: Richard White
Assistant Director: Frank Coffey, Ann Wynn [Elsa Chauvel]. 82 mins
Cast: Dennis Hoey (Mara), Margot Rhys (Beatrice Lynn), Ashton Jarry (Akbar Jhan), Kenneth Brampton (Trask), Marcelle Marnay (Sondra), Edward Howell (Vitchi), Victor Fitzherbert (Hemingway), John Fernside (Captain), Edward Sylveni (Salter), Norman Rutledge, Don McNiven and Carl Francis (troopers), Frank Dwyer (Blum), Rita Aslin (Nardin), Jessica Malone (secretary).
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Silent Era
Available from: ScreenSound Australia
1936 - White Death
Zane Gray is on a quest for a great white shark. In his mission, he visits an island in the Great Barrier Reef, where he meets a missionary whose son and wife were taken by a shark known to the local Aboriginal people as 'White Death'.
Aboriginal extras were brought from Palm Island, some of whom already had experience in film acting in Chauvel's Uncivilised). Although the film was initially successful at the box-office, reviews were critical with the Sydney Morning Herald, 9 November 1936, dismissing the film as 'a rambling and rather ramshackle film... almost bare of dramatic action'.
Director: Edwin Bowen
Production Company: Barrier Reef Films
Producer: Edwin G Bowen
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Frank Harvey
Photography: H C Anderson, Arthur Higgins
Editor: Edwin G Bowen, William Carty
Art Director: James Coleman
Music: Isadore Goodman
Song: 'Moonlight on the Barrier' by J E Morhardt
Assistant Director: Roy Sebastian
Sound: Arthur Smith. 81 mins
Cast: Zane Grey (himself), Alfred Frith (Newton Smith), Nola Warren (Nola Murchison), John Weston (John Lollard), Harold Colonna (David Murchison), James Coleman (Professor Lollard), Peter Williams (boatman), Frank Big Belt (guard)
Resources: Internet Movie Database
1947 - Bush Christmas
After a group of children carelessly boast to some strangers about their father's valuable mare, the mare goes missing, and suspecting the strangers of the theft, the children set off with a young Aboriginal friend, Neza, to try to recover the horse. The children become lost in the mountains and are forced to eat grubs and snake. On discovering the horse thieves, the children harass them and steal their food and shoes, but are trapped when they follow the thieves to an old ghost town. A happy ending follows, as the thieves are arrested and the children return home for a Christmas party.
Director: Edwin Bowen
Production Company: Barrier Reef Films
Producer: Edwin G Bowen
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Frank Harvey
Photography: H C Anderson, Arthur Higgins
Editor: Edwin G Bowen, William Carty
Art Director: James Coleman
Music: Isadore Goodman
Song: 'Moonlight on the Barrier' by J E Morhardt
Assistant Director: Roy Sebastian
Sound: Arthur Smith. 81 mins
Cast: Zane Grey (himself), Alfred Frith (Newton Smith), Nola Warren (Nola Murchison), John Weston (John Lollard), Harold Colonna (David Murchison), James Coleman (Professor Lollard), Peter Williams (boatman), Frank Big Belt (guard)
Resources: Internet Movie Database
1950 - Bitter Springs
Set in the early 1900s, “Bitter Springs” is the story of a pioneer family who embark on a 600-mile trek to the land that they have bought from the government in outback South Australia. On arrival, they clash with an Aboriginal group who depend on the waterhole now claimed by the settlers for survival. Eventually a compromise is reached and the Aboriginal group and settlers agree to work together to establish a sheep station around the waterhole.
In August 1950, the Monthly Film Bulletin noted that the film is 'fundamentally a serious study of the relations of white settlers and Aborigines'. In the film a roving trooper (played by Michael Pate) expresses Liberal attitudes towards the problem of Aboriginal land rights, whose defence of the Aborigines is in direct conflict with the prejudiced views of Wally King, the leader of the white intruders. The film’s sympathy for the plight of dispossessed Aborigines was characteristic of Ealing liberalism in the 1940s. “Bitter Springs” is an example of one of the more honest Australian films at that time.
Director: Ralph Smart
Production Company: Ealing Studios
Producer: Michael Balcon
Associate Producer: Leslie Norman
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: W P Lipscomb, Monja Danischewsky
Story: Ralph Smart
Photography: George Heath
Camera Operator: Ross Wood
Editor: Bernard Gribble
Art Director: Charles Woolveridge
Music: Vaughan Williams
Production Executive: Eric Williams
Production Manager: Jack Rix
Assistant Director: Michael Forlong, David Moore
Sound Recording: Hans Wetzel
Sound Editor: Mary Habberfield
Sound Supervisor: Stephen Dalby. 86 mins.
Cast: Tommy Trinder (Tommy), Chips Rafferty (Wally King), Gordon Jackson (Mac), Jean Blue (Ma King) Michael Pate (trooper), Charles Tingwell (John King), Nonnie Piper (Emma King), Nicky Yardley (Charlie), Henry Murdoch (Black Jack)
Resources: Britmovie.co.uk, Internet Movie Database.
1955 - Jedda
Jedda, a newly born Aboriginal baby is adopted by a white woman, Sarah McMann, in place of her own child who has died. Jedda is raised as a white child on a lonely cattle station in the Northern Territory, forbidden contact with the Aborigines on the station. When Marbuck, an Aboriginal man, arrives at the station seeking work, Jedda is fascinated by him and one moonlit night is drawn by his song to his campfire. Taking Jedda as his captive, Marbuck returns to his tribal lands and is rejected by his tribe for breaking their marriage taboos. Pursued by both the men from Jedda's station and haunted by his own tribe, Marbuck is driven insane and finally falls, with Jedda, over a cliff.
The film struggles with cultural relations, dealing with what has been perceived as a dilemma in the past by liberal whites in their relations with Aboriginal people: should Aboriginal people be trained as “whites” or allowed to pursue their own culture free of white interference?
Critics both nationally and internationally praised the film's visual grandeur and the sincerity of its script. Robert Tudawali (Marbuck) attracted much attention for his performance. In 1960 Ngarla Kunoth (Jedda) joined a convent in Melbourne, but in 1969 left the order to work in Aboriginal welfare in Victoria.
Director: Charles Chauvel
Production Company: Charles Chauvel Productions
Producer: Charles Chauvel
Dialogue Director: Elsa Chauvel
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Charles Chauvel, Elsa Chauvel
Research: Bill Harney
Photography: Carl Kayser
Editor: Alex Ezard, Jack Gardiner, Pam Bosworth
Art Director: Ronald McDonald
Animation: Eric Porter
Music: Isadore Goodman
Unit Music: Harry Closter
Assistant Director: Philip Pike
Sound: Arthur Browne. 101 mins. Colour
Cast: Ngarla Kunoth (Jedda), Robert Tudawali (Marbuck), Betty Suttor (Sarah McMann), Paul Reynall (Joe), George Simpson-Lyttle (Douglas McMann), Tas Fitzer (Peter Wallis), Wason Byers (Felix Romeo), Willie Farrar (little Joe), Margaret Dingle (little Jedda)
Resources: Internet Movie Database, AFI Screen Bibliographies: Jedda, Jedda digital restoration project, Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection, Video interview with Rosalie Kunoth Monks about Jedda, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks (Film Australia teacher's notes), Robert Tudawali, Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy, Oz Film Database,
Reviews: Cinephilia, Creative Spirits
Articles: Film - Jedda, Charles Chauvel - Australian Silent Star of October, 1998, Jedda (Humphrey McQueen's website)
Available from ScreenSound Australia
1958 - Dust In The Sun
Justin Bayard, a Northern Territory policeman, is to take an Aboriginal captive, Emu Foot, to Alice Springs to be tried for a tribal killing. Bayard is wounded during an attack and Emu Foot helps him to a remote cattle station. Following a domestic crisis, Emu Foot is blamed for a murder.
Exteriors for “Dust in the Sun” were filmed on location near Alice Springs. The film was premiered at the Sydney Film Festival in October 1958 with reviews praising the spectacular Territory landscapes and 'the calm presence' of Robert Tudawali in his role as the Aboriginal captive.
Director: Lee Robinson
Production Company: Southern International
Producer: Chips Rafferty
Associate Producer: Joy Cavill
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: W P Lipscomb, Lee Robinson, Joy Cavill. From the novel, Justin Bayard, by Jon Cleary
Photography: Carl Kayser
Camera Operator: Keith Loone
Editor: Stanley Moore
Music: Wilbur Sampson
Production Manager: George Hughes
Sound: Don Connolly. 86 mins. Colour
Cast: Jill Adams (Julie Kirkbride), Ken Wayne (Justin Bayard), Maureen Lanagan (Chris Palady), James Forrest (Tad Kirkbride), Robert Tudawali (Emu Foot), Jack Hume (Ned Palady), Henry Murdoch (Spider), Reg Lye (Dirks), Alan Light (Inspector Prichett)
Resources: Internet Movie Database
1960 - Shadow Of The Boomerang
"Shadow Of The Boomerang” was a 'Christian Western' designed to show the role played by the crusade in the lives of particular individuals. Bob and Kathy Prince, an American brother and sister, come to Australia to manage a cattle station. Unlike his more liberal-minded sister, Bob is intolerant of Aboriginal people, but eventually overcomes his resentments.
The Australian supporting cast included the Aboriginal singer Jimmy Little, in his first film role.
Director: Dick Ross
Production Company: World Wide Pictures
Producer: Dick Ross
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: John Ford, Dick Ross
Photography: Mark McDonald, James B Drought
Editor: Irving Berlin
Art Director: Dennis Gentle
Music: Ralph Carmichael
Songs: 'Shadow of the Boomerang' by Ken Taylor and Hal Saunders, sung by Jimmy Little; 'Return' by Ralph Carmichael, sung by Georgia Lee
Production Manager: Dennis Atkins, Eugene Anderson Sr.
Assistant Director: Bede Whiteman, Eugene Anderson Jr. Sound: Allyn Barnes, John Kean. 98 mins. Colour.
Cast: Georgia Lee (Kathy Prince), Dick Jones (Bob Prince), Jimmy Little (Johnny), Marcia Hathaway (Penny), Ken Frazer (stockman), Keith Buckley (stockman), Vaughan Tracey (Dr Cornell), Hugh Sanders, Maurice Manson, Orville Sherman, the Billy Graham team
Resources: Internet Movie Database
Essay: Shadow of the Boomerang
1967 - Journey Out Of Darkness
Set in Central Australia in 1901, “Journey Out Of Darkness” is the story of a young trooper who is sent to arrest an Arunta man responsible for a ritual killing. On the return journey, the trooper's blacktracker dies, leaving Peterson to cross the desert alone with his prisoner. Their roles are soon reversed and through the experience Peterson gains a new understanding of Aboriginal people and their knowledge.
Despite the liberal message of the plot, the film was curiously archaic in its casting of a white actor, Ed Devereaux, in a principal Aboriginal role. For this reason, the film was unpopular at a time when consciousness of Aboriginal affairs was growing stronger in the Australian community.
Director: James Trainor
Production Company: Australian-American Pictures
Producer: Frank Brittain
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Howard Koch, James Trainor
Story: James Trainor
Photography: Andrew Fraser
Camera Operator: Peter Hopwood, David Gribble
Editor: Bronwyn Fackerell, James Trainor
Music: Bob Young
Production Manager: John Gray
Assistant Director: Peter Scott
Sound Recording: Lyle Hughes, Rick James
Sound Editor: Tim Wellburn. 92 mins. Colour
Cast: Konrad Matthaei (Peterson), Ed Devereaux (Jubbal), Kamahl (prisoner), Ron Morse (Sergeant Miller), Marie Clark (Mrs Miller), Betty Campbell (Jubbal's wife), John Campbell (first child), Don Campbell (second child), Julie Williams (Aboriginal girl), Nukitjilpi (chief), Roy Dadaynga (tribesman), the Arnhem Land Dancers from the Yirrkala Mission.
Resources: Internet Movie Database
1971 - Walkabout
Plagued by the pressures of city life, a father drives his children into the desert and tries to kill them before shooting himself. The two children, a boy and a girl, wander aimlessly until they meet an Aboriginal boy who is on a solitary walkabout as part of his tribal initiation into manhood. The three travel together and gradually sexual tension grows between the girl and the Aboriginal boy. As the trek nears its end, the Aboriginal dances a night-long courtship dance which the girl refuses to acknowledge, and wakes in the morning to find the boys corpse hanging from a tree.
The film depicts the contrasts between the noise, pollution and corruption of city-life with the life of the Aboriginal boy, who falls victim to a girl whose freedom has been limited by her urban upbringing.
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Production Company: Max L Raab-Si Litvinoff Films
Executive Producer: Max L Raab
Producer: Si Litvinoff
Associate Producer: Anthony J. Hope
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Edward Bond. From the novel by James Vance Marshall
Photography: Nicolas Roeg
Special Photography: Tony Richmond
Editor: Anthony Gibbs, Alan Patillo
Production Design: Brian Eatwell
Art Director: Terry Gough
Music: John Barry
Production Manager: Grahame Jennings
Assistant Director: Kevin Kavanagh
Sound Recording: Barry Brown
Sound Re-recording: Gerry Humphreys. 100 mins. Colour
Cast: Jenny Agutter (girl), Lucien John (brother), David Gulpilil (Aboriginal), John Meillon (father), Peter Carver (no-hoper), John Illingsworth (husband), Barry Donnelly (Australian scientist), Noelene Brown (German scientist), Carlo Manchini (Italian scientist)
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Senses of Cinema,
Commentaries: Culture and Communication Reading Room
Study guides: Fresh Film Festival
Reviews: Cinephilia, Creative Spirits, Rotten Tomatoes
1973 - Come Out Fighting
Aboriginal boxer, Al 'The Bomb' Dawson is facing a crisis in his life. Unable to reconcile the conflicting demands on his life by his Aboriginal friends, the fight promoters and a group of students campaigning for Aboriginal rights, he rejects them all, giving away his chance to contend for a world title.
One of the films most powerful moments includes a scene in which two drunken Aborigines are violently abusive toward Al for deserting their lifestyle. The film was completed on a tiny budget of only $6000, and was, according to the Sydney Morning Herald (24 September 1973) 'a good, strong film which could have been better... if only the film-makers had had the time and money'.
Director: Nigel Buesst
Producer: Nigel Buesst
From the play by Harry Martin
Photography: Byron Kennedy
Editor: Tony Patterson. Music: Smetana and others
Sound: Lloyd Carrick. 50 mins. Colour. 16-mm.
Cast: Michael Karpaney (Al Dawson), Joey Collins (Eddie), Bethany Lee (Susan Parker), Cliff Neate (Stan Harkness), Peter Green (Rocko Garibaldi), Bob Horsfall (Phil Bench), Brian Torrens (Carl Price), Peter Adams (Garry Day), Martin Phelan (student), Harry Williams (Aboriginal drinker), Max Pescud (trainer), Bert Williams (Aboriginal drinker), Kris McQuade ('Sporting World' hostess), John Jacobs (trainer), John Duigan (student).
Resources: Internet Movie Database
1973 - Lost In The Bush
Made for schools by the Victorian government, “Lost In The Bush” was released widely through non-commercial film libraries around Australia. The film tells a story popular in the Wimmera area of Victoria of Jane Duff, aged seven, and her two younger brothers who spent nine days lost in the Victorian bush before being found in an advanced state of exhaustion by a search-party led by Aboriginal trackers.
Director: Peter Dodds
Production Company: Audio-Visual Education Centre, Education Department of Victoria
Screenplay, Scenario, Script, Editor: Peter Dodds
Story: Les Blake
Photography: Lee Wright
Props: Graeme Mullane
Music: Geoff D'Ombran
Pre-production: Ross Campbell
Assistant Director: Ross Matthews
Sound: David Hughes. 64 mins. Colour. 16 mm
Cast: Gabrielle Bulle (Jane Duff), Colin Freckleton (Isaac Duff), Richard McClelland (Frank Duff), Adrian Crick, Barbara Maroske, Don Mitchell, Bill Tregonning.
Resources :Internet Movie Database
1973 - No Bag Limit
“No Bag Limit” is a film about destruction of the Aboriginal people of Tasmania and the on-going discrimination and disadvantage experienced by Aboriginal people following settlement. Shown at the London International Film Festival, the lead actor, Gulipilil, went on to world stardom.
Producer: Andrew Vial
Director: Andrew Vial
Screenplay: Andew Vial
Starring: David Gulpilil, Dick Bundilil, John Mathews, Jenny Ingram, Moth
1975 - Protected
“Protected” was designed in part to record an episode of tribal resistance against white domination, and partly to inform white audiences about conditions on Aboriginal reserves in Queensland. The film told the story of a strike in June 1957 when the Aborigines on the Palm Island reserve, off the north Queensland coast, refused to work or obey orders from white officials. The roles of the Aboriginal people in the strike were played either by relatives of the people involved or by themselves.
“Protected” was a passionate protest against the 'protective’ legislation in Queensland under which Aboriginal people were subjected to physical and mental abuse and were denied basic human rights.
Director: Alessandro Cavadini
Producer: Carolyn Strachan
Photography: Fabio Cavadini
Editor: Ronda MacGregor. Colour. 16-mm. 55 mins
Narrators: Don Brady, Robert Hughes
1976 - Mad Dog Morgan
“Mad Dog Morgan” is portrait of the bushranger Dan Morgan, who roamed the Riverina and northern Victoria during the gold rush days of the 1860s, and was based on the research of Margaret Carnegie. The film attempted to break through the legend of Morgan as a maniacal killer, presenting Morgan as a poor Irish victim of a violent society and a repressive colonial administration. With an Aboriginal boy, Billy, as his sole friend and ally, Morgan is hounded to commit desperate acts of retaliation by a sadistic police superintendent, Cobham, and is eventually killed in a police ambush.
Director: Philippe Mora
Production Company: Motion Picture Productions
Producer: Jeremy Thomas
Associate Producer: Richard Brennan
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Philippe Mora. Based on the book Morgan by Margaret Carnegie
Photography: Mike Molloy
Camera Operator: John Seale
Editor: John Scott
Art Director: Robert Hilditch
Music: Patrick Flynn
Aboriginal Songs, Didgeridoo: David Gulpilil
Production Supervisor: Peter Beilby
Production Manager: Jenny Woods
Assistant Director: Michael Lake, Chris Maudson
Sound Recording: Ken Hammond
Sound Re-recording: Peter Fenton
Stunts: Grant Page
102 mins. Colour. Scope
Cast: Dennis Hopper (Daniel Morgan), Jack Thompson (Detective Manwaring), David Gulpilil (Billy), Frank Thring (Superintendent Cobham), Michael Pate (Superintendent Winch), Wallas Eaton (Macpherson), Bill Hunter (Sergeant Smith), John Hargeaves (Baylis), Martin Harris (Wendlan), Robin Ramsay (Roget), Graeme Blundell (Italian Jack), Gregory Apps (Arthur), Liza Lee-Atkinson (barmaid), Elaine Baillie (farm girl), Don Barkham (Morrow), Kurt Beimel (Dr Dobbyn), David Bracks (McLean), Liddy Clark (Alice), Peter Collingwood (Judge Barry), Peter Cummins (Gibson), John Derum (Evans), Gerry Duggan (Martin), Max Fairchild (prisoner), Chuck Faulkner (Sergeant Montford), Judith Fisher (Mrs Warby), Alan Hardy (Bob), Isobel Harley (Mrs Macpherson), David John (John Evans), Norman Kaye (swagman), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Simon), Kevin Leslie (Maples), Robert McDarra (parole officer), David Mitchell (Haley), Christoper Pate (Roget's assistant), Grant Page (Maginnity), Philip Ross (Watson), Bruce Spence (Heriot), Peter Thompson (Mayor), Roger Ward (trooper), Ken Weaver (Bond)
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection, Oz Film Database
Review: Cinephilia
1976 - Storm Boy
Adapted from renowned Australian children’s author, Colin Thiele, “Storm Boy” tells the story of a boy growing up in the Coorong, in south-eastern South Australia. Isolated from the disciplines and disillusionments of more conventional childhoods, the boy forms a friendship with a wild pelican. The narrative simplicity and respect for the natural environment evident in the original text were successfully retained in the film.
Greg Rowe played the young boy in the film, while David Gulpilil played a supporting role as an Aboriginal youth who camps in the wildlife sanctuary and teaches “Storm Boy” about the land, the sea and the Aboriginal people.
The film gained strong support from critics, both in Australia and Internationally. The Monthly Film Bulletin, and English publication, described “Storm Boy” as 'A beautifully crafted film for children...With its simple, direct story-line, fine acting and marvellously photographed scenes of natural beauty, Storm Boy is the best movie of its kind for some little time'.
Director: Henri Safran
Production Company: South Australian Film Corporation
Producer: Matt Carroll
Associate Producer: Jane Scott
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Sonia Borg. From the novel by Colin Thiele
Photography: Geoff Burton
Camera Operator: Ross Nichols
Editor: G Turney-Smith
Art Director: David Copping
Music: Michael Carlos
Location Music: Beverley Davidson
Assistant Director: Ian Goddard, Ian Jamieson
Sound Recording: Ken Hammond
Technical Adviser: Grant Page
Pelican Trainer: Gordon Noble
87 mins. Colour.
Cast: Greg Rowe (Storm Boy), Peter Cummins (Hideaway Tom), David Gulpilil (Fingerbone Bill), Judy Dick (Miss Walker), Tony Allison (ranger), Michael Moody (boat master), Graham Dow (Edwards), Frank Foster-Brown (Lynch), Eric Mack (Jones), Michael Caulfield and Paul Smith (hunters), Hedley Cullen (Marina manager), children from the Port Elliot Primary School.
Resources:Internet Movie Database, Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection
Commentaries: Oz Film Databases
1977 - Backroads
Jack, a white vagrant, and Gary, a young Aboriginal, steal a 1962 Pontiac and head off into western New South Wales. The two steal booze, rifles and elaborate clothes, and pick up a trio of fellow-travellers, including Gary's uncle Joe, a French hitch-hiker, and an embittered woman who has deserted her role as mother and wife. When Joe drunkenly shoots a stranger, they are pursued by police, and Joe and Jack are arrested, but in his attempt to escape, Gary is hunted down and killed.
Through the dialogues between Gary and Jack, this film represents an angry polemical statement about white responsibility for black poverty and hardship. “Backroads” was the first feature film in which Aboriginies made a major creative contribution. Gary Foley's participation was central to the direction of the film as a political activist in the 1970s, influencing the direction of other Aboriginal actors and monitoring the film's expression of the ‘Aboriginal’ viewpoint. At his insistence, the ending of the film was re-written, ending with a scene in which the white people shoot Gary down like a hated animal.
Director: Phillip Noyce
Production Company : Backroads Productions
Producer: Phillip Noyce
Associate Producer, Assistant Director: Elizabeth Knight
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: John Emery, Phillip Noyce and the cast
Photography: Russell Boyd
Editor: David Huggett
Music: Robert Murphy
Songs: 'Tarpaulin muster' and 'They say it's a crime', composed by Dougie Young; 'Backroads', composed and sung by Zac Martin
Unit Music: Kevin Smith
Sound Recording: Lloyd Carrick
Sound Mix: Julian Ellingworth. 61 mins. Colour. 16-mm
Cast: Bill Hunter (Jack), Gary Foley (Gary), Zac Martin (Joe), Terry Camilleri (Jean-Claude), Julie McGregor (Anna).
Resources: Backroads: From Identity to Interval, Internet Movie Database, Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection, Koorie History Special Feature
Reviews: Cinephilia, Creative Spirits
1977 - The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith
“The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith” is a story of young Aboriginal man who goes on a killing spree. This is a confrontational film, dealing with some of the most controversial issues involving racism and the treatment of Aboriginals in Australia over the past 200 years. The main character, Jimmie (Tommy Lewis) is raised by a white couple, and is led to believe that if he marries a white girl he will be able to ‘fit’ better into society. He marries a white girl and sets up house on a farm, but he snaps and goes on a killing spree after being cheated by one farmer, seeing an Aboriginal girl murdered by the police, and watching his wife being refused food at a homestead. “The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith” is a tragic story about the legacies of Australia's past.
Producer: Fred Schepisi
Director: Fred Schepisi
Screenplay: Fred Schepisi
Starring: Tommy Lewis, Angela Punch-McGregor, Ray Barrett, Elizabeth Alexander, Bryan Brown, Peter Sumner, Jack Thompson, Ruth Cracknell, Freddy Reynolds, Ray Meagher, Brian Anderson, Jane Harders, Jack Charles, Arthur Dignam, Robyn Nevin, Ian Gilmour, John Jarratt
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection, Thomas Keneally
Commentaries: Senses of Cinema, A Cry in the Dark: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and the “New Australian Cinema”
Reviews: Cinephilia, Creative Spirits
1977 - Journey Among Women
Set in the late eighteenth century in a remote Australian penal colony, “Journey Among Women” is the story of the refined young daughter of a judge-advocate, Elizabeth Harrington, who is determined to do something to improve conditions for a group female convicts who are kept in appalling conditions and are abused by the guards. When the women manage to escape, Elizabeth goes with them. A young Aboriginal girl, Kameragul, shows them how to survive in the bush, but Elizabeth is overcome with fever and malnutrition. The youngest member of the group, Emily, nurses her back to health and helps to liberate her from the inhibitions of her past life.
Director: Tom Cowan
Production Company: Ko-An Film Productions
Producer: John Weiley
Screenplay, Scenario, Script: Tom Cowan, John Weiley, Dorothy Hewett and cast
Story, Photography: Tom Cowan
Camera Assistant: Malcolm Richards, Jeni Thornley
Editor: John Scott
Music: Roy Ritchie
Costumes: Norma Moriceau
Props: Sally Campbell
Director of Actors' Workshops: Adam Salzer
Sound Recording: Jef Doring
Sound Editor: Greg Bell. 93 mins. Colour
Cast: Jeune Pritchard (Elizabeth Harrington), Nell Campbell (Meg), Diana Fuller (Bess), Lisa Peers (Charlotte), Jude Kuring (Grace), Robyn Moase (Moira), Michelle Johnson (Bridget), Rose Lilley (Emily), Lillian Crombie (Kameragul), Therese Jack (Kate), Kay Self (Sheila), Helenka Link (Jane), Ralph Cotterill (Corporal Porteous), Martin Phelan (Captain Richard McEwan), Tim Elliot (Doctor Hargreaves)
Resources: Internet Movie Database, Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection