Australian
Screen

Clip description

In this dramatised sequence, a mining family hears on the wireless that Singapore has fallen to the Japanese. Husband (Marshall Crosby) and wife (Beryl Bryant) look outside despairingly on an inactive coal mine. Industry stakeholders meet with a representative from the Miners Federation to discuss the need to increase coal production for the war effort. At the pit tops, a mine organiser gives a motivational speech to his workers saying that it is a 'struggle for survival’. Over breakfast, the wife goes to deliver wool and father and daughter (Dorothy Dickson) have a candid talk. The daughter proudly says that she’ll marry a miner and stay where she is because 'big things’ are happening and 'coal is the essence of all power’, a power which will allow them to win the war.

Curator’s notes

This clip follows on immediately from the opening sequence which sets up the urgency of the situation and the harsh reality of war. From newsreel footage of combat in Europe, Chauvel brings the scale back to the domestic front. Chauvel wanted to humanise the miners as well as to motivate them to continue coal production for the war. The miners are positioned as fighters for a cause and men to be proud of (reinforced by the daughter’s dream of marrying a miner rather than a white-collar worker, despite her education). The mining organiser’s inspirational speech is another example of how Chauvel’s script emphasises the miners’ essential role in maintaining the war machine.