THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER (1982)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: George Miller

SCREENWRITER: John Dixon, Cul Cullen

FILM STARS: Kirk Douglas, Tom Burlinson, Terence Donovan, Sigrid Thornton, Jack Thompson, Tony Bonner, Chris Haywood, Gus Mercurio, Tommy Dysart, Bruce Kerr, David Bradshaw, June Jago, Lorraine Bayly, Kristopher Steele, Howard Eynon

COUNTRY: Australia

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Elyne Mitchell

TYPE: Novelisation

PUBLISHER: Pinnacle

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1982

COUNTRY: USA

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK (Poem)

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: A.B. ‘Banjo’ Paterson

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1890

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Adventure

WORDS: I only saw this film because Kirk Douglas was in it.

Now, some would say that is un-Australian, but being the son of migrants from continental Europe I have no affinity with the stories of the Australian bush, Banjo Paterson (on whose poem this is based), colonial Australia, or the Anglo-Celt history of the same.

Of course, my ethnicity has something to do with my ambivalence but that’s not the whole story. I read novels set in the US of the same era and I’m not American. I just find the Australian stuff less than rewarding.

As admirable as Australian bush poetry was in the 19 century – with Australia trying to find its own identity as a response to British hegemony – the hole banging on about it, (especially) in the republican 1970s, probably turned me off it … off the bush poetry not the republicanism.

It was everywhere in the 70s when I was a kid.

And then in the 80s people started to look at Australia’s colonial past with nostalgia, and a nostalgia largely removed from reality.

I’m not saying the (actual) history isn’t interesting, it is to a point, but I was pretty much over it.

Bush poetry is too colloquial, and its themes are rarely universal (or so it seems to me).

But it is well known here and much like the Australian national anthem everyone of my generation knows the first couple of lines of the poem (and that’s about it):

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around

That the colt from old Regret had got away …,

For me, any “poetry” in the lines is overwhelmed by the “old Australia” bush jingoism which follow Paterson and his poem.

The poem tells the story of a horseback pursuit by Australian bushmen to recapture the colt of a prizewinning racehorse that escaped from its owner and is living wild with the brumbies (wild horses) of the Australian mountain ranges in New South Wales.

As if a film wasn’t going to be made, especially after the mammoth success of another “horse” movie …  The Black Stallion (1979)

So when this film came out there was a groan from a kid in Paddington, Brisbane.

Though as a Kirk Douglas fan and anal completist I required a viewing, so I saw it.

I subsequently forgot about the film despite it having Kirk and a some of my favourite Australian actors: (the great) Jack Thompson, Chris Haywood and American ex pat Gus Mercurio.

Kirk Douglas plays two roles,  two brothers: one a wealthy cattle farmer, and the other a grizzled prospector, Kirk could often go over the top (and why not) and this is certainly in his (almost hammy) chewing up the scenery career phase. Kirk wasn’t adverse to broad strokes when required and here they let him run with it. Tom Burlinson (who does a great Frank Sinatra impersonation elsewhere) is the lead and he does a good job though he is too clean cut to be a bushman in my mind.

Beautiful landscape photography of Australian highland and scrub (which is rarely spectacular) and images of horses running are also merits.

People were expecting an (Australian) western which it’s not really, it’s more of a rural drama with action-adventure scenes. And that’s fine. I’m not sure why people assume all westerns have to be “shoot em ups”, they don’t (though they often are). With that in mind it comes off a bit Disney-ish or like an Australian version of My Friend Flicka (1943).

Director George Miller (Australian but Scottish born) is not the same director as other (and much better) George Miller (Australian born) of Mad Max fame.

Screenwriter John Dixon was sufficiently anachronistic to create an Australia (almost) devoid of anything but the off spring of the Anglo-Celts, which indigenous Australians and gold fields aside aside, it largely was.

The film’s screenplay contains numerous references to Banjo Paterson’s poem and injects him into the story as a character and throws in a passable story about a young man alone in the world who falls in love with the ranchers daughter.

A bestselling soundtrack of the same name (by Bruce Rowland) followed in 1982, as did a sequel The Man from Snowy River II (1988) as did a soundtrack to the sequel (Return to Snowy River (1988)), as did a TV series The Man from Snowy River (1993-1996), as did a musical theatre production (with horses and all) The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular (2002) (I note that apart from some musical contribution from Bruce Rowland the stage musical has no great relationship to the 1982 film, its sequel or the TV series), as did a soundtrack The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular (2002) as did a film of the theatre production The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular (2003). Also, for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia Rowland composed a special Olympics version of The Man from Snowy River “Main Title” for the Olympic Games.

Groan.

An interesting note : the silent era film of the poem The Man from Snowy River (1920) is not dissimilar to the 1982 version with its love interest and deviation away from the actual poem.

The Man from Snowy River was a box-office success and the highest-grossing Australian film until Crocodile Dundee was released four years later in 1986.

The novelisation is by Elyne Mitchell, a perfect choice to do the same. She was a keen horse rider, resident of the Snowy Mountains and the author of the Silver Brumby (about wild horses in the Snowy Mountains of Australia) series of books for children and young adults. I suspect Banjo Paterson, John Dixon and her all speak and write the same language, and I don’t mean English.

I don’t need to read this and I don’t need to see the film again unless I’m on a Kirk Douglas retrospective.

LINKS

TRAILER:

the American trailer

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2730427673/