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The Sundowners (1960)

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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

by Paul Byrnes

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).

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