THE OVERLANDERS
Australia, 1946, 80 minutes, Black and White.
Chips Rafferty, Daphne Campbell.
Directed by Harry Watt.
The Overlanders is remembered as one of the typical Australian films. It marked the growth of British film interests in the country, especially Ealing Studios, after World War II. They looked for local colour and history. The results were the four films - The Overlanders, Eureka Stockade, Bush Christmas and Bitter Springs, directed by Harry Watt or Ralph Smart. The star who sustained these films was Chips Rafferty, seen at his most Australian, but also at his best.
There is not much in the stories: the dialogue is stilted and the action contrived, but the films were made on small budgets and are successful for all that. The Overlanders shows an image of Australia that was popular and influential over a quarter of a century ago.
1. Did you find the film interesting? Exciting? Why?
2. Did you find the style too old-fashioned or was it easy to allow for the film's being made in the mid-40's?
3. Does the type of Australianism shown and expressed in the film reflect the same attitudes today? How? Does the Australianism of the mid-40's after the war seem better or worse than Australian feeling now? In which areas? why?
4. Was the war framework at the opening of the film well done or was it too contrived or too much anti-Japanese propaganda? Did it reveal well the feelings of Australians during the war? Why did the cattle have to be moved south?
5. Did the people of the north have to go to great lengths, such as burning their houses, to leave nothing for the Japanese if they invaded?
6. Were the port scenes convincingly done - the workers, Dan's determination, the Englishman, the decision to go? How did the film sustain interest in the long trek across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland? How did the screenplay keep audience attention? What techniques were used effectively? Was the narration by Dan a successful technique? Did it give the film the authenticity of a semi-documentary? How?
7. Were the inter-relationships between the characters well drawn? The love interest? The clashes of opinion? Comment on individual episodes as illustrating how The Overlanders was good cinema - the moving of the cattle, the river-crossing sequence (and the crocodile). the stampede. getting the cattle over the mountain.
8. How did the film show what kind of country Australia really is - the way the land was photographed. the animals, the terrain, the distances, dangers, the road, the flying in of mail, medicine etc., the Australian temperament, easy-going nature, accent and irony? What attitudes towards the Aborigines did the film show?
9. Did you enjoy the film even though it belongs to a past age?
