WILLS & BURKE
Australia, 1985, 100 minutes, Colour.
Gary McDonald, Kym Gyngell, Peter Collingwood, Jonathan Hardy, Mark Little, Alex Menglet, Wyn Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Chris Haywood.
Directed by Bob Weiss.
In 1985, an expensive and well-mounted historical film on the ill-fated expedition of Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, directed by Graham Clifford and starring Jack Thompson Nigel Havers, Burke and Wills, was released in Australia. However, at the same time, in some areas releasing a week before Burke and Wills, was this small budget more comic interpretation of the characters and their expedition, generally considered a parody featuring a significant number of Australian comedians and veteran actors and Nicole Kidman at the beginning of her career. It was not a commercial success and remains an Australian cinema curiosity.
In many ways it presupposes audience knowledge of the expedition of Burke and Wills, travelling through northern Australia, miscalculations, their deaths and the survival of one of their expedition members, Jonathan King.
The film recreates the atmosphere of the 19th century, period and style, but especially focusing on aspect of Melbourne, theatre, zoo, and locations. And, of the expedition, desert and jungle.
The film has a jaunty score, songs and lyrics and the irony of asking: who’s laughing now?
While the film introduces us to the characters, audiences realise that Gary McDonald was a famous comedian, especially on television with his intrusive and cheeky news interviewer, Norman Gunston. A bit difficult to accept him as Burke. Kym Gyngell also had a comic reputation.
On the one hand, the tradition was to have Burke and Wills held up as heroes, significant explorers of the 19th century, aspects of Empire and glory, superior gentleman, comparisons with the aboriginal people and Asians. Key to this film is the putting on of a play, with music, a focus on the actress Julia Matthews, Burke proposing to her and her wanting to be the main star of the play. At this stage, Nicole Kidman was in her late teens.
There is the expected presentation of the authorities in Victoria, the presentation of the governor, politicians, bureaucrats, a poking fun at pomposity through the governor.
The film has been little seen since its first release but, especially with its cast, and the historical situation of it being released at the same time as the more ambitious Burke and Wills, it has a place in the history of Australian cinema.
