BULLSEYE

Australia, 1989, 93 minutes, Colour.
Paul Goddard, Kathryn Walker, John Wood, Lynette Curran, Paul Chubb, Bruce Spence, Kerry Walker, John Meillon.
Directed by Carl Schultz.

Bullseye is a handsome production, a re-creation of western Queensland and South Australia at the end of the 19th. century. However, the story and the performances are not the epic that might be expected. Rather the atmosphere is of the yarn and the shaggy dog story. originally, the film was called Birdsville.

The film is set in the Outback west of Brisbane centring on Roma. It also highlights the desert between Queensland and South Australia. There are also some South Australian city scenes. Decor and costumes are excellent. The film focuses on an English bull and its presence in the Outback, its presence on a historic trek from Queensland through the desert. There is also a good range in the cast from the naive but shrewd hero Paul Goddard to character actors like Paul Chubb, John Wood and John Meillon.

The film has lavish production values - but, unfortunately, the material has been seen often before. Direction is by Carl Schultz who made Blue Fin, Goodbye Paradise, Careful He Might Hear You and Travelling North.

1. The impact of the film? Epic, comic, yarn? For Australian audiences? For overseas audiences?

The atmosphere of Queensland, South Australia in the 19th. century? Period. atmosphere?

Panavision photography, the town, the homestead, the property, the desert, the trek? The contrast with the city? Pace for action sequences? The filming of the cattle trek? The musical score?

4. The title - doing justice to the content?

5. Queensland in the 19th. century, remote, train travel, cattle treks, droving, the outlying stations. cattle-rustling, pioneers. treks through the desert, the Australian cities, markets, homes, housing, brothels? The flavour of the period?

6. The focus on the bull - and his title? English aristocracy? A huge animal, work, the investment of the property in the bull, its status, with the cows, following the stolen cattle, Harry returning it and then deciding to steal it, its moving through the desert, the sale, returning home? The significance and the visual impact of the cattle and the trek?

7. Harry as an earnest young man, English background, his family disowning him. confidence and lack of confidence, his being put down, work on the property, relationship with McKenzie?, leading the bull to the station, the clashes with the men and their ribbing him, giving him the hard work. post-holes, toilets etc.? His plan and his confiding in the Irishman? Taking the cattle? The other workers and their coming in on the plan? Helping in the round-up Harry's fight with them and their going off? His stealing the bull? The trek through the desert, surviving, relief at Cooper's Creek, deciding to go on, the clash with the Irishman, success? The money from the sale? Having a night on the town - the tavern. the dances. the cabbie and going to the brothel, the irony of meeting the girl? Lily, illness, the ship and the return, arrest, trial. their acquittal, success? Type? True? yarn?

8. Irish and his role, help, coward, the desert, the Cooper's Creek trek, the brothel, his disappearance? Comic style?

9. Lily and her being in service, the letter, her work, leaving, her relationship with Harry? The train, the arrival of Adelaide, Mrs. Googe, the money, poverty, work, becoming a tart, the chance encounter with Harry, illness, the trial, the happy ending?

10. The sinister Mrs. Googe and her respectability, her manner with Lily, the irony of the other side of the house and her running a brothel? Tough, the attic, the bath, the clients and the girls?

11. Paul Chubb as McKenzie?, managing, Harry, the farm? His wife, sexual relationship with the comic touches, the fights? The trial?

12. Samuel Merrett and his drinking, rhetoric? Judge, court? The manner of the trial? The attorneys? The acquittal?

13. Purdy? The men, working, fighting, jail and clothes farce, witnesses, the ending?

14. The scope of the film, the memories of the pioneering days? The style of the yarn?