Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The Sundowners (1960)

play
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip 'What home looks like'

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

Clip description

The Carmodys are camped in the Snowy Mountains beside a farm that’s for sale. Paddy (Robert Mitchum) explains why owning a farm is a recipe for misery. His wife Ida (Deborah Kerr) and son Sean (Michael Anderson Junior) are not convinced. Paddy rides off to see about their next droving contract, as his wife and son look with longing at the farm.

Curator’s notes

Despite the international casting, The Sundowners has an unusual amount of Australian colloquialism for an international production. Phrases like 'old coot’ and 'cow cocky’ were completely understood in Australia, and probably completely unintelligible to Americans. Nevertheless, Fred Zinnemann insisted on the film being faithful to the style of the novel. Jon Cleary was asked to put back Australianisms that the other (non-Australian) writers had taken out. Deborah Kerr’s accent relies heavily on her English heritage – a sort of Australianised British working class accent. Michael Anderson, who plays the son, was also English-born, son of the director Michael Anderson who made Logan’s Run (1976) and Orca (1977).

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer 'What home looks like' from the feature film The Sundowners as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
sundowne1_pr.mp4 Large: 17.5MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
sundowne1_bb.mp4 Medium: 8.2MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: