SMITHY

Australia, 1946, 120 minutes, Black and white.
Ron Randall, Muriel Steinbeck, John Tate, Joy Nichols, Alec Kellaway, John Dease.
Directed by Ken G. Hall.

Smithy was a popular success on its first release in the mid-'40s. It was the last feature film to be made by the prolific director Ken G. Hall. It was to be the last Cinesound feature before the studios moved completely to newsreels.

The film was made by Columbia Pictures and with Columbia's money. Ken Hall chose Kingsford-Smith? as a hero to be remembered and praised after World War Two. The film opens with a war setting and reminiscences about Smithy in World War One and his subsequent career. The film is a typical biography of the period - but stands up quite well. Ron Randall has a boyish charm as Smithy. Muriel Steinbeck is his devoted but concerned wife. Joy Nichols has a very good role as an American girl. There is a guest spot by former Prime Minister, William Morris Hughes as himself.

The film traces Smithy's career as a war pilot, his desire to be an aviation explorer and dramatises his achievements, especially with Charles U1m and John Stannidge. Particular incidents from Smithy's life are passed over very quickly, for example the crash in the Northern Territory and the disastrous search for the missing plane.

Composer Alfred Hill wrote music for the flight sequences over the Pacific. These ought be compared, as could the biography, with Billy Wilder's 1958 The Spirit of St. Louis with James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh.

Smithy, far from being at the beginning of a post-war film industry boom, is something of a postscript to the industry of the '30s and '40s.

1. The quality and achievement of the film? Mid-'40s? Charles Kingsford Smith as Australian hero? Australian history? Morale? The film as a tribute?

2. The work of Ken G. Hall in the '30s? Cinesound studios? Technique, commercial interest? The backing of Columbia Pictures, black and white photography, locations, re-creation of the period? Re-creation of the flight over the Pacific? Over the Tasman and the crisis? The musical score for these sequences?

3. Audience knowledge of Smithy? The '40s and the vivid memory? Later interest? His name becoming famous, the Southern Cross, airports? His achievement, pioneering and aviation skills? The pathos of his death?

4. The '40s and the short time since Smith's death? The setting of 1943 and the south-west Pacific, the Americans, the Australian memoir and tribute? The praise throughout the film and the humorous ironic sequences of the typical Australian Ocker?

5. Smithy in World War one, in flight, battle, achievement, injuries? Recuperation, the nurse, at Buckingham Palace? Sending the Military Cross to his parents? Youthful, hopes, an aviation pioneer?

6. His plans to fly to Australia, the visit of Billy Hughes and lending his authority stop the flight? Kingsford Smith's sense failure, going to the United States, the train trip and the meeting with Kay, becoming friends, the reunions, her support? The lack of funds? Returning to Australia, years of work? The development of air travel in the '20s? Air mail? Defence purposes? His going into business, the work with Anderson? Lack of skills in finance? The success of other pioneers?

7. The arrival of Charles Ulm: the hopes, flying the Pacific? Going to the U.S., meeting Kay again, the contracts, planes, the endurance test to get the money and the failures? Kay and the introduction to Hancock? The funds raised, the build-up to the flight? The long sequences of he flight: photography, dramatic tension? The intercut radio broadcasts and the pessimism? Honolulu, Fiji, flying the Pacific, the Australian coast, Brisbane and Sydney? Arrival and acclaim?

8. Ron Randall as Smithy: age, boyishness, hopes, experience? The background of his parents and family? Work, lack of success, reputation and yet the government not supporting him in enterprises?

9. The encounter with Mary, the autograph, meeting her again, the voyage, the proposal, her father? The wedding? happy, Mary's anxiety, the life, Mary's pleas that he not fly?
birth of the son, their affluent life?

10. The background incidents omitted from the film: the crash in the Northern Territory desert, Ulm's death, flights to and from England, the centenary flight? the presentation of the crossing of the Pacific? The flight of the Tasman and the crisis - especially the transferring of oil from one engine to another on the wing? The radio broadcasts?

11. Smithy and his achievement, getting tired, older? decisions? Illness? People pleading with him not to fly? England, illness, the decision to fly? The final flight, the characters coming back in his memory and flying into the sunrise? their influence on him? glorification of the hero?

12. The film and its presentation of an Australian hero: ordinary, achievement, the knighthood, ambivalent attitudes of government, the buying back of the Southern Cross, family? The sequence with the boys and his envisioning then as flyers of the future? His beliefs? The history of aviation and its development? Qantas? Later decades and the achievement of Smithy?