Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip shows Marion (Margaret Dare) preparing for bed as her Aunt Abbie (Rita Pauncefort) unpacks her clothes. Marion, who has just returned from Europe to her father’s cattle station, expresses concern that her father has troubles. She wants to be a practical help to him and is angry with Dick Drake (Victor Jory), the property overseer, who has told her she is 'useless’. The clip cuts to a bare-chested Drake washing at a sink as upper-class Englishman Reggie Mannister (Robert Coote) introduces himself and the two men bond.

Educational value points

• This clip is a 'bush western’, a genre in which the US 'western’ film is transposed to the Australian outback. The characteristics of the genre, such as a threat to livelihood, physical dangers such as floods, fire or drought, and romance between two protagonists who initially dislike each other, remain the same. However, the Australian location, characters and attitudes added elements that producers hoped would appear exotic to overseas audiences.

• Feature films made in Australia can be designated as a fully Australian production, a co-production such as the film from which this clip is taken, or a foreign production. Kenny (2006) is a fully Australian production with Australian creative and financial control. Rangle River was co-produced by Australian and US interests. A foreign production is fully funded and creatively controlled by overseas production companies, and such a film may or may not use some Australian crews, studios and post-production facilities. Stealth (2005) and Ghost Rider (2007) are examples of foreign productions that used Australian film crews and facilities.

• The aim of a feature film co-production such as Rangle River is to spread financial risk and to reach wider audiences. Sometimes, the inclusion of an identifiable overseas star who would appeal to their 'home’ audience is seen as a way of achieving that. Co-productions with British or US co-funders have been a part of the Australian film industry since the 1920s. One of the first examples was For the Term of His Natural Life (1925), a classic Australian story about a convict. The film had a US director and US lead actors.

• Rangle River is an Australian feature film that was a direct result of a government initiative, the New South Wales Quota Act 1935. The optimistic plan behind the legislation was that 20–25 Australian films would be produced in the first year and that US distributors would have to finance and then exhibit them. US and British distributors resisted this and in 1937 the New South Wales Government acquiesced to their requests. This, combined with the government’s lack of expenditure on the finance and low-cost studio facilities required for film production, ended the effectiveness of the Act.

• The role of women in the Australian outback was in general a practical rather than an ornamental one, even when the woman was from an 'upper-class’ family living on a large cattle station, as shown in the clip. Outback women had to show remarkable stamina and resourcefulness, characteristics exemplified in Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife. Conditions were often harsh, with extremes of weather, no medical or educational facilities, isolation and relentless hard work required to survive.

• Charles Chauvel (1897–1959) was an Australian film director who co-wrote the screenplay for Rangle River with his wife, Elsa Chauvel (1898–1983). The Chauvels were pioneer Australian filmmakers who produced feature films from the 1930s through to the 1950s, when the Australian feature film industry was almost moribund. Their first film together was In the Wake of the Bounty (1933), and they went on to make classics of Australian cinema such as Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940) and Rats of Tobruk (1944). Their last feature film was Jedda (1955), which was the first Australian colour film. Jedda was also one of the earliest films to star Indigenous Australian actors, with Ngarla Kunoth (1936–) and Robert Tudawali (1928–67) in key roles.

A young lady gets changed as her older aunt unpacks clothes into a wardrobe.
Aunt Abbie You’ll need lots more room for your lovely things when the rest of your trunks arrive.
Marion They can stay in the trunks, Abbie. From now on I’m going to stop being merely ornamental and be useful for a change.
Aunt Abbie Even ornaments have their uses, my dear. And this old house certainly looks as if it could do with one.
Marion Everyone here has been working while I’ve been playing. There’s trouble here, and Daddy has great worries. I’m going to work.
Aunt Abbie Trouble, you say? You’re right, Marion. There’s something.
Marion Something ugly. I feel it, somehow. Huh. Mr Drake says I’m useless.
Aunt Abbie Does he?
Marion Yes, and he didn’t mince matters telling me, either. I think he’s hateful. Just a fighting brute.
Aunt Abbie I think he’s quite interesting. Dark hair and… quite interesting, I thought.
Marion Well I don’t. Why didn’t he send for me before? Why didn’t he tell me that Daddy was so ill?
Aunt Abbie Why don’t you ask him?
Marion Ask him? I’d rather die first. Useless, am I?
Aunt Abbie Now, come along. Get into bed. You can’t do anything useful tonight, anyway.
Marion Useless, am I?
Aunt Abbie Goodnight, dear.
Marion Goodnight, Abbie. Useless, am I?

We see a man washing his face. A man in a suit approaches.
Drake So I’ve got bad manners, huh?
Reggie Mannister What’s that?
Drake What? Oh, oh nothing. Nothing at all.
Reggie Hello there. Removing the grime of battle?
Drake Yeah, I’m just getting some of the slime off my hands.
Reggie Drake I believe?
Drake Yes.
Reggie My name’s Reginald Morton Cyngin Carfew Mannister.
Drake What?
Reggie But my friends all call me Reggie.
Drake Reggie. Well, Reggie, I want to thank you for saving me from that knock on the head today. It was very nice of you.
Reggie Not at all. Dash good fight.
Drake Thanks. But not the sort of thing they teach in the smart finishing schools in England.
Reggie Oh, quite right. Quite right. Something they rather lack, don’t you think? Hello. I say, what have you got there? Let me give you a hand, will I?
Reggie applies antiseptic to Drake’s wounds.
Drake Thanks.
Reggie How on earth did you get these?
Drake Lack of good manners and intelligence, I suppose.
Reggie Not a bit of it. That fist is worth its weight in intelligence.
Drake Well, apparently that’s a matter of opinion.
Reggie Quite right. Quite right. There we are. How’s that?
Drake Fine. You have rather a professional touch. Thanks.
Reggie Don’t mention it. Well, um…
Drake Well, I…
Reggie Well, goodnight.
Drake Goodnight.