The previous reviews document well about how this has been influenced by American westerns.However, don't let this put you off in any way.
Pioneers in the rugged Australian outback drove a thousand head of sheep into the bush but run afoul the local Indigenous population over custodianship of the land and hunting rights. Perennial ocker Chips Rafferty pairs with cockney Tommy Trinder, whose son is later abducted by aborigines as retribution after Bud Tingwell kills one of the tribe during a heated stoush.
Chips Rafferty stars in this semi-realistic fable slash western film based in the mid-north of South Australia. A family move to a selection in South Australia together with some English immigrants, a con man and his son and a Scottish carpenter.
Ealing Studios had a flirtation with Australia just after the war.This clearly was their attempt to do a western.
A surprisingly successful Australian 'Western' (shades of "The Overlanders") which takes an unexpected turn; it looks as if the film is going to focus in traditional fashion on the bonding of the various disparate characters and the physical obstacles they have to overcome during their long journey, but in fact the sheep drive occupies a relatively short proportion of the film. The central issue turns out to be the discovery that all the 'new land' on the far side of the desert is already occupied -- by the local Aborigines, who have been there for millennia and have no intention of going away, not least because they have no other water source and nowhere else to go.
