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Heritage (1935)

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clip 'The wife ship' education content clip 3

Original classification rating: G. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

The tiny settlement at Sydney Cove comes alive with news of a ship bringing single women to the colony. James Morrison (Franklyn Bennett) incurs the wrath of pretty young Biddy O’Shea (Peggy Maguire) when he tries to ‘carry her bundle’. The crowd becomes unruly when the women are snapped up by soldiers.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

Chauvel learned much of his craft in trips to Hollywood, and from watching American movies. John Ford may have been a particular influence, because Chauvel was similarly inclined towards folksy humour, gross sentimentality and the dramatic use of powerful landscape. Ford helped establish the foundation mythology of the conquest of the west in America’s culture. Chauvel tried in his movies to do the same for Australia but with far more limited resources. This is a typically Fordian scene – the Irish ‘spitfire’ who resorts quickly to her fists, verses the tall, virile native-born man looking for a wife. One of the strongest themes in Heritage is about the need to breed children to populate a new country. The ‘wife ship’ brings fit young heifers to accommodate the young bulls of the colony – the message is almost that crudely put.

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