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Have you seen Wake in Fright (1971)?

Yes

No

Haven’t even heard of this movie

Voting ended onFeb 16

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Wake in Fright (1971, dir. Ted Kotcheff)

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The Sundowners (1960, Fred Zinneman)

11/14/21

Found one of my favorite childhood movies on DVD. It’s been far to long since I last saw it and it’s still as great as I remember it. So I wanted to share it with you. Probably the best Kangaroo Western made. “The Overlanders” (1946)

So, Kangaroo Western is an Australian take on a Western. This one’s set around 1942, right after the bombing of Darwin in World War 2. It’s very similar to Rawhide in ways. First off because it’s based on real events. After Darwin, people thought the northern areas of Australia were at risk of a full scale invasion, so people who could were evacuating. With no available stock boats to take the cattle, a lot of people drove their herds across country. All up about 100,000 head of cattle were moved this way.

“The Overlanders” is about a handful of drovers and a ranch owner and his family who team up to move 1000 head of cattle from northern Western Australia to Queensland over 1500 miles (2214 km). In this story, they’re the first group to attempt this.

Their boss is Dan McAlpine, played by Chips Rafferty. Rafferty was one of the big name Australian actors at the time and he’s considered a cinema icon today. People referred to him as the “Australian Gary Cooper”. Dan ends up leading a team of drovers that include Corkey, who would prefer to drink and gamble but who can be trusted to come through when needed, a Scottish ex-sailor who’s nicknamed “Sinbad” and rancher Bill Parsons with his wife and two daughters, Mary and Helen.

They put together a herd of 1000 bullocks and start out on an 8 month journey, dealing with a crocodile filled river, poison weed that kills a bunch of their horses, capturing wild horses and breaking them in as replacements, drovers quitting on them, stampedes, dried up water and a treacherous climb over a mountain range.

Something that makes this different from a lot of old westerns is that the three girls with them are actively part of the team as drovers and wagon-master. Even the kid, Helen, works at helping them trap the wild horses.

When the cattle stampede in the middle of the night, Mary is the one to turn them back. “Ma” Parsons handles a wagon team of six barely broken horses over mountain train. The women in this movie are awesome.

One thing they never had to deal with on Rawhide. River full of crocodiles.

There be whump and a love story too. Sinbad is badly hurt in a stampede (He lives) He and Mary also fall in love over the course of the movie.

Needing the quickest path to water before the cattle die, they are forced to take a narrow mountain path that nearly ends in disaster when a fallen tree blocks the path.

Facing off a herd of thirsty cattle threatening to stampede, on foot, is one of the most badass moments in this movie. This movie says that cattle are afraid of humans on foot. Rawhide says they’re not. I don’t know enough about cattle to comment. Either way, it’s a cool scene.

Finally getting their cattle to Queensland and after resting up a bit, they take a flight on a military plane and head back north to pick up another herd. On the way they fly over a number of other cattle drives that are following their path.

Overall it plays like a movie length Rawhide episode and it was filmed entirely on location on a small budget so it feels very real to watch. I was obsessed with this movie as a kid. One of my favorite westerns of all time.

#Long post #But hope you enjoyed it #The Overlanders #Kangaroo Western #Australian Western #History #Chips Rafferty #Think I'll do some more posts on Kangaroo Westerns #There's some really good movies that I think get forgotten

Veteran Australian actor Chips Rafferty reportedly demanded real beer be used in his takes for WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971) after rejecting the non-alcoholic substitute in disgust.

Director Ted Kotcheff did the maths, estimating that he would be required to down some 30 pints in a single day. Upon informing Rafferty of this, the actor stated:

“You look after the directing, Ted, and I’ll look after the drinking.”

Kotcheff claims the drinking had no effect on Rafferty’s speech or performance:

“He never stumbled on a word or anything. It had no effect on him whatsoever. I kept saying, how the hell does he do that?”