SMILEY

UK, 1956, 97 minutes, Colour.
John Mc Callum, Ralph Richardson, Chips Rafferty, Colin Petersen, Joyce Hernfield, Reg Lye.
Directed by Anthony Kimmins.

Smiley was popular with audiences in Australia in 1956-57. The work of writer/producer/director Anthony Kimmins, the film is a British production made in Australia. It took advantage of the presence of Ralph Richardson touring Australia at the time in the theatre. Once again Chips Rafferty and John Mc Callum are the Australian leads. Colin Petersen plays an attractive young lad who wants a bike. (Petersen was later to have a successful musical career with the Bee Gees.) The film was one of several British/Australian co-productions of the time - echoing The Overlanders and the films of the '40s and The Shiralee, Robbery Under Arms of the mid-'50s. The film could be considered in a similar vein to Storm Boy, Blue Fin and Let The Balloon Go, the type of children's film for boys made in the '70s. There was a sequel, Smiley Gets A Gun.

1. How attractive a family film? Its particular qualities for family audiences, the nature of its appeal?

2. The contribution of the Australian background, colour and Cinemascope, the bush and its way of life?

3. How authentic did the Australian town seem: the details of the streets and buildings, homes, people involved, the ways of life, the aborigines, the atmosphere of the bush?

4. Smiley as a young boy in this situation? How well portrayed was his character, his personality? Audience sympathy for his way of life, the details of scenes in his relationship with his mother, the background of his drunken father? His relationship with the other children, school, church, wandering around the town? A boy audiences were interested in and could identify with?

5. The importance of his dream about getting a bike, the devious way in which he made money, the straightforward ways? Audience hopes that he would get his bike?

6. The characters of the adults and the way that they were portrayed, in relationship to the plot and the children? The minister and his kindly role, Flaxman and his administration of police work in the town, Rankin and his work as a publican, joviality yet his using the boy, his relationship with the aborigines?

7. How plausible were the adventure aspects of the film, especially the trading with opium? How exciting were the particular difficulties for Smiley?

8. How satisfying were the resolutions of the conflicts and Smiley getting his bike?

9. What values, traditions, do films like this presuppose in their audiences?