Australian
Screen

Clip description

Reverend Lambeth (Ralph Richardson) stops to top up his overheating car radiator and is greeted by Smiley (Colin Petersen) and his best friend Joey (Bruce Archer). Smiley has a bruised cheek from a fight; the Reverend approves of what he calls Old Testament justice. He is pleased to hear that Smiley has not yet squandered the money he has been saving – unlike Joey – so he offers Smiley a new position, as bell ringer for the church.

Curator’s notes

There’s great charm in both the writing and playing of this scene. Ralph Richardson was a giant of the English stage and screen, and a great favourite with English audiences. Putting him opposite a natural actor like Colin Petersen, a Brisbane schoolboy with no fear of Richardson’s grand reputation, makes for a very natural comedy. Petersen was a large part of the film’s success, although he was replaced in the sequel by another actor, because Petersen was already working on another film in Britain when the sequel was made. Colin Petersen went on to become a drummer with the Bee Gees.

Richardson’s ability to make much out of his character is clear here: he gives a sense of great moral authority to the eccentric reverend, who wears a patched cassock and drives a vintage bomb. He is not a stuffy kind of cleric, but a man of the world. We can see a very steely resolve in the way he talks to Smiley, as well as great good humour, in the savouring of the arcane word ‘tintinnabulation’. The dialogue avoids the obvious – the boys don’t ask what the word means. They already know, because they have probably grown up hearing it from him. In that kind of subtle detail, a sense of community and reality is created.