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Smiley Gets a Gun (1958)

Synopsis

Smiley (Keith Calvert) is constantly in trouble so the local policeman, Sergeant Flaxman (Chips Rafferty), offers him a deal. If he can behave responsibly, for a prolonged period, he can have the sergeant’s own .22 rifle. He has to earn eight notches on a tree, awarded by the sergeant, but lapses will be subtracted. Smiley’s father (Reg Lye) reckons he can’t do it; he bets against his son in a secret wager with a visiting water driller, Stiffy (Grant Taylor).

Smiley turns over a new leaf, taking bees to old Granny McKinley (Sybil Thorndike) for her rheumatism, and cranking the organ at the church. Another boy sabotages him by letting a goat loose during services. Smiley loses notches when the policeman trips over the goat. He loses more when he’s blamed for starting a bushfire in which his friend Joey (Bruce Archer) gets minor burns.

Granny shows him her secret stash of gold coins, confirming a town rumour. Smiley inadvertently talks about the gold to a big-city writer, Mr Quirk (Guy Doleman), who’s writing a book on the town. When Quirk steals the gold during a town celebration, Smiley gets the blame. He runs away into the bush, hiding at Stiffy’s drilling camp. Stiffy takes him back to clear his name at a trial. Joey helps Stiffy expose the real criminal, and Smiley earns his gun.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

The success of the original Smiley in 1956 ensured there would be a sequel, and author Moore Raymond had already written a second book. The major problem for director Anthony Kimmins was that the original actor, Colin Petersen, was already working in the UK on another film. His replacement was 10-year-old Victorian schoolboy Keith Calvert, who brought great sincerity to an otherwise lesser film.

Kimmins wrote the script with Rex Rienits, an Australian who had been working on British films since 1951. Rienits had worked with Lee Robinson and Chips Rafferty on the script for Walk Into Paradise (1956), and with Cecil Holmes on Three in One (1957). He returned to England after Smiley Gets a Gun.

The sequel moves the story away from the distinct and innovative social realism of the original towards Australian clichés for a foreign audience. Smiley now has a pet kangaroo in his backyard, for instance. The original had a number of Aboriginal actors and glimpses of Aboriginal poverty; the sequel has no Aborigines, only a support character made to look darker with make-up.

Audiences reacted to the second film with appropriate coolness. It was far less successful than the first, which eventually killed off the plans to make a third film. Anthony Kimmins made only one more film, The Amorous Prawn (1962), back in the UK four years later. He died in 1964.

Smiley Gets a Gun was released in Australian cinemas in December 1958 after its UK release in May of the same year.