User Reviews

This is an impressive film, crammed with poetic images. The strong story, elegantly told, revolves around a team of cattle-drovers who undertake an epic task: to move a herd of 1,000 cattle from the north coast of Australia 1,600 miles across the outback to Queensland. A late wartime flag-waver, this movie was Ealing Studios' first foray into 'empire' subject matter. With Australia's Northern Territory facing the threat of invasion by the Japanese, a small group of assorted individuals decides to drive a herd overland to keep it from falling into the enemy's hands. Relying on their own inherent grit and resourcefulness, the overlanders cope with crocodiles, drought, desertions and stampedes as they try to bring their cattle safely into Brisbane. Chips Rafferty, as Dan McAlpine, the leader of the team, personifies Australian qualities of toughness and decency. Nicely understated action scenes and a relaxed, naturalistic style of acting make this a very watchable movie. The viewer is skilfully drawn in, and quickly develops genuine concern for the likeable characters. All in all, an excellent film.

"The Overlanders" is a depiction of Australia and Australians that could perhaps be regarded today as more mythical than real but the film is a worthy one as a semi-documentary look at droving as it was prior to the advent of rail and road trains.

Chips Rafferty, the Crocodile Dundee of his day, plays the part of what was seen as the typical Australian. He was frank, laconic, tough, dedicated to the task, resourceful and, above all, a friendly sort of bloke. His understated, matter-of-fact narration is a highlight."When a bore goes dry on you like that, you're in a mess." Helen, the young teen daughter, played by Helen Grieve is another highlight. There is an authenticity to her even though by today's standards her delivery sounds a bit awkward. Her physique and movement give the impression that she could really rough it in the outback. She portrayed a bush girl who could ride a horse or run with a natural ease or take a fall without fear. Grieve was used to good effect in "Bush Christmas" a year later.

Best of all, "The Overlanders" did not demonise nor patronise the Aborigines (blacks). Yes, they are depicted as workers/drovers who are there only to help and are socially separate from the whites but this is how it was. They are never used as the butt of jokes nor is their culture gratuitously questioned or ridiculed. The "wild blacks" who passively observe the cattle drive from a rock formation are given a sense of dignity without being patronised as being "noble savages".

There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon than by watching this film. You learn of some things about droving and there are a few cultural and historical bits and pieces along the way. And the stark, ragged beauty and terror of Australia's north is always worth a look. PS. Chips had been a real life drover as opposed to Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) who was a rigger (painter) on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Ealing Studios primarily known for those British comedies of which some of the best starred Alec Guinness went really out of character when they produced The Overlanders which is a modern southwestern and an outdoor film at that. It's a fictionalized account of some Aussie cattle drovers from the north who when faced with a possible invasion from Japan in 1940 drove a thousand head of cattle from the north, southeast to Brisbane to keep them out of enemy hands. Chips Rafferty who was the Australian movie star for three decades stars as the man whose vision and hard work made it possible.

A cattle drive is a cattle drive and those of us who've seen American films like Red River, The Texans, and Cowboy are familiar enough with the job requirements for herding cattle. Of course the casts of those classics. But John Wayne didn't have three women in his crew going to Missouri. Chips did, a mother and two daughters of one of his crew and they certainly held up their end.

It was interesting to see that rather than lariats the stockmen used bullwhips to keep the cattle moving. Not that they whipped the cattle because I think that would have produced some angry beasts. But the sound of the whips snapping is what keeps them moving. Of course ropes are there if needed and in one rather harrowing sequence a rope is what saves a really bad situation.

Another interesting sequence is when their train of horses gets into some poisonous weed and they lose several, a herd of wild horses called in Australia 'brumbies' are captured and broken for use. Now that can be found in a lot of American westerns.

The cattle drive of 1940 is but part of the story of Australia's greatest hour of danger and how their people came through. Darwin was bombed by the Japanese and until the Australian army was retrieved from North Africa the continent was in its greatest peril. You can see that in Nicole Kidman's Australia.

This film didn't quite have the budget Australia did, but it's a fine film from down under and a tribute to some brave and resolute people.

The acting is a little awkward (Chips Rafferty excepted) and it doesn't matter a damn. It's a problem-solving picture. There's a large herd of cattle on the coast of the Northern territory and six people must lead it overland to pastures just north of Brisbane; obstacles crop up, and we watch, absorbed, as our characters take the most rational path around them. Our heroes (yes, even the Scottish sailor - well, PERHAPS the Scottish sailor) have enough native charm to make us care about them, and even if they didn't, the vastness of the landscape and the detailed realism of their trek would do the job just as well.

Two bonus, uncalled-for pleasures: the music (John Ireland's first and last film score), and the cinematography - amazingly attractive when you consider that Australian landscapes (rather dull to begin with) tend not to photograph well, certainly not in the harsh bright sunlight that Harry Watt, in the interests of realism, chose to shoot in. Watt was right to choose harsh sunlight. The film is half documentary, half fiction, without feeling like an awkward cross between the two. You'll read that Watt's talents were limited, and I can readily believe they were, but in "The Overlanders" his weaknesses come across as little more than extensions of his strengths. It's exactly the film he wanted, needed and in all likelihood was born to make.

Somewhat dated at the turn of the century but a wonderful look back at outback life at the end of WWII. There is no pretence in this movie... it is an honest insight into the life of the drovers who, before road trains, faced the outback with their vast herds of cattle and drove them for months through all conditions. Rafferty is of course the perfect image of the young drover of those days. There is even some dialogue relevant to the changing country and things that we would understand 50 years later. A must see for all Aussies.

Many Australians are unaware of the threat posed to the top end of Australia as a direct result of a Japanese attack on Darwin during WW11. Many residential owners of farms and properties, including livestock were either destroyed or moved to safety. This film covers one such major attempt to shift thousands of prime livestock south - away from the perceived threat of advancing enemy troops. This epic cattle drive involved a massive droving venture on a scale not attempted before (1,600 miles) - which the threat of an approaching invader left little time to properly organise. This arduous journey stretched from Western Australia, through the Northern Territory to Brisbane Queensland, a vast and challenging area indeed.

This film, being the first of British Ealing Studios/Australian branch productions - covers the trials of this mighty excursion, detailing the many dangers and obstructions encountered by the small band of locals - determined to save their livelihoods while keeping the vital meat supply from an approaching enemy. Aussie, Chips Rafferty does well as the lanky stockman who suggests and implements the risky drive, while another Aussie Peter Pagan turns in able support as 'Sinbad' the ex-British sailor. Lovely Australian nursing orderly Daphne Campbell plays the daughter of a family who also joins the mighty trek southward - along with several experienced Aborigines hired as stockmen assisting with the cattle. All cast members work well together making this an impressive first-off Brit/Aussie feature. Young Daphne Campbell turned down future offers of roles overseas to stay home and raise a family.

While this production was financially successful, the following Ealing feature "Eureka Stockade" (a fine and much more involved venture) did not sell well, unfortunately ending Ealing's Australian arm's operations. Both are recommended vintage productions for equal interest as entertainment and history. The often barren Outback settings are effectively shot in stark B/W adding further drama.

This is a simple story well told, although some allowance has to be made for the limited acting skills of the principals, and for the obvious budgetary constraints (let's not forget the world was recovering from a major upheaval in 1946 when the film was made).

The characters are believable, as are their motivations and reactions to obstacles. The women are as sure-footed as the men (unusually for the time), and the same can be said for the aboriginals with respect to the white characters.

It doesn't quite qualify to be classified with (the original) "Flight of the Phoenix" but watching it is a far better way to spend a couple of hours on a wet afternoon than watching the remake of THAT excellent film.

In summary - believable (and tight) story line, above average script, acceptable acting but let down by some minimalist cinematography which doesn't make the best use of the available landscape.

With the fear of a Japanese invasion, the government wants to prepare for occupation and war in the thinly populated territories -- fewer than five thousand White men, as the narrator notes, and over a million head of cattle. The result is a cattle drive, led by Chips Rafferty and John Nugent Hayward, and this obvious western movie is set in Australia, produced by Ealing, and looks to have been the source of many of the drive scenes from Howard Hawks' Red River two years later.

That's almost certainly overstating it; it's not like there were ten thousand or so western movies produced in the US for Hawks, his writers, and his cameramen to lift shots from. While you can shoot a sequence of cattle crossing a river ten thousnd different ways, depending on where you place the cameras, there's certainly a family resemblance in the assortment., and Michael Balcon's staff at Ealing had seen their share of westerns too. So they took the obvious route for the movie, adding a score that seems a touch to heroic. Well, it's a wartime movie, and it was a massive undertaking. It's a very well done 'Shaky A' western, even though it isn't. And is.

The most striking characteristic of this film is its splendid cinematography - for a cineast enjoying fine photography, this is an inexhaustible gold mine of fine sequences. The story is no less impressing, it's a true story, of how a determined farmer decided to rather drive his thousands of cows across all Australia than leave to the Japanese, as the invasion was imminent. It's a wondrous epic of surmounting atrocious difficulties, constantly under the threat of the herd starting a stampede, which the thousand bullocks actually do twice, and the question of the miracle of how so many cows could be well and appropriately directed into a film must arise. Well, they did it, and as a true story made almost like a documentary, it is better and more impressing than most westerns, excelling them all in downright determined stalwartness obliged by necessity, in absolutely genuine Aussie style.

THE OVERLANDERS is an Australian drama that was produced by Ealing Studios, of all places. Needless to say that it's completely unlike the affectionate British comedies that Ealing are best known for. Instead this is a hard-bidden story of cattle drovers working during WW2 to save thousands of their cattle from falling into the hands of the Japanese, who may well invade the north of the country.

History, of course, tells us that the Japanese never did get around to invading Australia, but nonetheless this story has a drive and momentum that sees it through. The story is told dispassionately with the central characters just as tough as the environment they're travelling through. THE OVERLANDERS works well by adopting a semi-documentary feel that enhances the realism and the drama of the various obstacles that the drovers face; cliffs and crocodiles are just but two of them. As the laconic hero, Chips Rafferty fills the screen perfectly, and Daphne Campbell proves her worth as the feisty young girl just as skilled as the older men.

Fearing a Japanese invasion of the Northern Territories, Dan MacAlpine (Chips Rafferty) and a small group of drovers (including a sheila (Helen Grieve)), drive a thousand head of cattle 1600 miles across the outback to Brisbane. Although not a lot happens, the film is engaging, entertaining and very well made. Other than the accents, a number of "good on ya"s, and the occasional references to things such as 'billy bongs', the most noticeable difference between this opus and an epic Hollywood cattle-opera is the near absence of guns (they appear to have a single Lee Enfield rifle in case of crocs). Although preceded by Silver Screen's latest 'may offend' boilerplate, there are only a couple of offhand comments that might raise sensitive eyebrows and the two aborigine drovers are shown as competent, valuable members of the team. The music is a bit overwhelming at times but the great desert scenery and the general good-naturedness of the epic more than makes up for it (plus there is a 'stare-down' scene worthy of Sergio Leone). Not 'action packed' but well worth watching, mate.