QUIGLEY

Australia/US, 1990, 119 minutes, Colour.
Tom Selleck, Alan Rickman, Laura San Giacomo, Tony Bonner, Chris Haywood, Ron Haddrick, Jerome Ehlers, Ben Mendelsohn.
Directed by Simon Wincer.

Quigley originated as a western planned for Steve Mc Queen but did not progress after his death. Australian director, Simon Wincer - Phar Lap, The Lighthorsemen, Lightning Jack - took and interest in it and took it to the historian Ian Jones who had written The Lighthorsemen. They developed into a 19th century Australian action film, the settling of Western Australia and the landowners not understanding the aborigines and trying to kill them - especially by hiring American sharpshooters.

Tom Selleck is a Civil War Veteran who answers an advertisement for killing dingoes and then refuses to kill when he finds out the truth. Alan Rickman is the owner and has some lines which dramatise 19th century racism.

The film was shot in the Northern Territory near Ross River and at Warrnambool. There are some critical sequences of massacres of aborigines, especially one on the edge of a cliff which needs to be seen by all Australians to face the reality of such massacres.

1. The origins of this film as an American western? The genre and its conventions? The transposition of the plot to Australia in the 19th century? The property, the gunman, the tracking and killing of aborigines, racial issues?

2. Panavision photography and the locations, the Ross River area of the Northern Territory, the Victorian coast for the town? Authentic atmosphere? The beauty of the Australian landscapes? Rugged? The musical score - rousing, dramatic (especially for the sequences with the murdered aborigines at the bottom of the cliff)?

3. The international cast? The impact of Americans in the Australian Outback in the 1860s? The Americans calling the film Quigley Down Under?

4. The background of American history, the Civil War, the sharpshooters and their skills, their weapons? Australians advertising in the United States? The shooters sailing to Australia, the way that they were received, jobs? The Americans and their western background and civil war in the Australian Outback?

5. Audience knowledge of Australian history in the 19th century? The landowners, their claims to the land, their wealth, running cattle and sheep? The workers on the property? The wealth, the house, servants? The clash with the aborigines and the massacres? The landowners despising the aborigines? `Pacification by force'? The background of convicts? The harshness of the desert, survival in the desert? Wealth? Racism? The coastal towns and their lifestyle?

6. The aborigines and the 19th century, in the towns, on the properties, as servants in the households? The massacres of white people - and the story of the property owner talking about his family and his mother's death? Retaliation? Aborigines and their rights, going into the desert, being persecuted and massacred, heroics, the Spirit Warriors?

7. Tom Selleck as Quigley and his presence in Australia? The laconic type? His background in the Civil War and his shooting skills? Arriving in Australia, the wharves, the fight? The encounter with Cora and her calling him Roy? Riding on the wagon, arriving at the homestead? The demonstration shooting and his skills? The landowner and the shooting of the deserters? His meal, the discussion, the aboriginal old man as servant, the landowner's despising him and talking about the aborigines as the least civilised people on earth? The discussion about the wheel and American native Indians? Quigley's clash, the fight? The aborigine knocking him out? His being left to die? The shooting, being taken in by the aborigines, their healing rites, the mystical experience, teaching Quigley and his learning? The encounter with Cora, riding through the desert? Hearing the shot, the massacres on the cliff, his shooting the horseman? Cora and her grief at the dead children? His hearing Cora's story, why she called him Roy? The arrival in the town, the friendly people, the meals, somewhere to stay, caring for Cora? His return, the clash and the ambush? The face-off in the Outback, his strategies and tactics? The workers from the homestead and trying to trap him? His being taken, the confrontation with Marston, his being quicker on the draw? The old aboriginal man leaving? Quigley returning to the town, with Cora? A future?

8. Marston and Alan Rickman's style, his story, being born on the wrong continent, hiring of Quigley, his control over his workers? The meal, the disparaging talk, spitting the cigar end, the talk of civilisation? The fight with Quigley? His shooting the deserters? His anger, setting his workers onto Quigley? The siege in the hills? The final confrontation, his arrogance, his death?

9. The workers on the property, the Scot and his control, O'Flynn and the other men? Their duties? The encounter at the wharf, the fights? The gunman and their confrontations with Quigley? Deaths? The final siege and their taking him? Their participating in the massacre of the aborigines?

10. Cora, her being in Australia, her madness, her story and the horror of the siege of the Indians, her husband blaming her for the death of their child when she was trying to stop it crying? With the aborigines, her horror at the massacre, going to the children at the foot of the cliff? Being left by Quigley with the baby, the dingos and her fear, not wanting to repeat the death of the baby, her surviving? The dress, the town, calling Quigley by his name?

11. The portrait of the aborigines, the old man working at the homestead, his being humiliated while serving, his walking away and stripping at the end? The men, women and children in the massacres, at the cliff, being pursued by horse? The pathos of the dead children at the foot of the cliff, the music?

12. The people in the town, settlers, their work, friendliness? The contrast with the clerk and the gun?

13. Life in the homesteads of the 19th century, the towns, the pioneers?

14. The tradition of the American western and the clash between whites and Indians? The moral perspective? The comparisons with the Australian experience?