1952 - KANGAROO aka The Australian Story

With money tied up in Australia, 20th Century Fox sent director Lewis Milestone over to the "land of down under."  To bad they couldn't have sent him a better script.  Kangaroo has the benefit of being filmed entirely in Australia, particularly in some hell hole called Mount Brown which really looks like a place no self respecting tourist would go.  The plot has something to do with a cattle ranch trying to keep their herd alive in the drought stricken outback by driving them to water.

Into this situation come a couple of bad guys. Richard Boone a real bad guy with no redeeming features and Peter Lawford a bad guy with some redeeming features.  Living on the ranch is British actor Finley Currie and his daughter played by Maureen O'Hara.  Boone and Lawford conspire to steal the ranch from Currie by having Lawford pretend to be Currie's long lost son.  Lawford falls in love with O'Hara and you can basically guess how this is going to end.  The director Lewis Milestone clearly realizing what a dumb plot this is, focuses on the cattle drive instead. This takes up much of the running time of the film thankfully.

 

This film is not without interest, the on location filming in color is impressive and Milestone knows how to stage action scenes.  It's too bad that more work couldn't have been put into the script.  As it stands the film is basically an American western shot in Australia.

 

The screenplay is by Harry Kleiner, the running time is a brisk 80 minutes.