SMITHY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 384, 1 November 1946, Page 32

SMITHY

( Columbia-Australian)

T was to ‘be expected that somebody would some day film the life of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, for he is good

material for a _ screen biography. And it is in some ways gratifying that the first feature-length production to have come out of Australia for several years should deal with such typically Australian subject-matter as this. At least we in this part of the world cannot now complain that the barbarians of Hollywood have laid impious hands on one of our few national idols. I say "we" because in this context Australians and New Zealanders can be read as one people, sharing the same proprietary pride in Smithy and his exploits-exploits which are stil] fairly fresh in the memory of a good many of us. I can\ myself recall the excitement with which, as a young reporter on a Christchurch newspaper, I undertook an assignment to go out to the home of one of the few real radio "experts" of those days and listen in on a crackling staticridden set for news of the Southern Cross on its historic trans-Tasman flight. In fact, one of the most curious oversights in the film is that it makes absolutely no attempt to exploit, as it might quite legitimately have done, the very special interest of New Zealand audiences in this aspect of Smithy’s career. The first air-crossing of the Tasman is dismissed in one casual line of dialogue. And yet the historic significance of that feat was brought forcibly home to us by a National Film Unit item on the same programme, showing a trans-Tasman air stewardess at work on the journey that Kingsford Smith had pioneered so dangerously such a comparatively short time before. * * *

JHAT is really disappointing about the film, however, is that, although the material is native Australian, it has not heen treated in an Australian manner. Or rather, jt might be more correct to say that the style of treatment is pure Hollywood. Perhaps there has not yet been time to get the hero of this story into true perspective; perhaps it was inevitable therefore that an Australian prodeation company should approach im from a position just this side of idolatry, with bated breath and having put the shoes from off their feet. Yet while it was probably too much to ex, pect on this occasion that vigorous, independent attitude which is commonly regarded as an Australian characteristic, and while I am also not for one moment suggesting that they should have gone to the other extreme of "debunking" the subject (the film has some shrewd thrusts at the mean-spirited belittlers of Smithy), I do feel that a much better job would have been made of the story if there had been a less fervent air of hero-worship; if it had been tackled in a more detached and unemotional manner, along the lines of the British documentary rather than of the Hollywood "epic."

Unfortunately, however, the producer of this Australian film is completely in thrall to Hollywood. All the familiar clichés and conventions are there; the approach is wholly sentimental. This is possibly most noticeable in the dialogue. The characters do not talk in the way that people really talk: they talk in the way they are supposed to talk-in the flowery phrases which Hollywood scriptwriters would like us to beliéve constitute normal conversation. Smithy himself, for instance, is referred to as "one of the pioneers who’stride across. lonely skies." And this flavour of false romanticism is carried through into many of the situations and into the acting. One notices it especially in Ron Randell’s over-glamorous portrayal of Smithy himself. When he first sees the Southern Cross being wheeled from the hangar, a yearning look comes into his face, a. holy light fills his eyes, he murmurs "She’s beautiful," and a heavenly orchestra strikes up. It is all very solemnand more than a little ludicrous. The heavenly orchestra, indeed, works oyertime throughout the picture, and notably in the finale when Smithy flies into the celestial distances followed by cohorts of ghostly planes, Perhaps some such ending was inevitable to such a story; but I cannot remove from my mind the idea that this scene, like many others, was included mainly because the producer had seen it done that way dozens of times before by Hollywood, ° * * * [ STRESS this aspect of Smithy not in order to obscure the strata of solid worth which exists in the film-it has several exciting scenes, some good acting, and considerable technical ingenuity -but because I feel very strongly that if Australian productions are to make their own mark in the cinema, Australian: producers will need to forget a good deal of what they have learnt from Hollywood, It may seem a little unreasonable to expect it in a film wholly about the conquest of the air, but a more down-to-earth attitude would have made all the difference to Smithy.