BOTANY BAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 733, 31 July 1953, Page 17

BOTANY BAY

(Paramount) BOTANY BAY does for Australia (or New South Wales, as it was then called) what Green Dolphin Street did for the infant colony of New Zealand, and I am sure that if it were not for the inherent toughness of our character we would both be done for permanently. This tedious Technicolored extravaganza purports to depict the voyage of a conviet ship from Tilbury to the New South Wales penal settlement, but if you are looking for a breath of sea air look @lsewhere. The brigantine Charlotte spends most of the long voyage in doldrums of one sort or another, and the sea figures mainly as a convenient dumping ground for those unfortunates who succumb to the harsh discipline of the bully skipper (James Mason), or as an indispensable adjunct ‘9 the keelhauling of tougher specimens like® Mr. Alan Ladd. Have you ever seen a keelhauling? I hadn’t seen one since Mutiny on the Bounty, but this time, to make sure’ that no enthusiastic sadists miss any of the fun, it’s a double keelhauling and it’s done twice over, while the suave Captain stands by rubbing his hands. Small wonder that when he eventually steps ashore the koalas, kangaroos and blackfellows make precipitately for the bush. I would have done the same, but that a fascinated horror held me glued to my fauteuil. Of course, I need scarcely add that in the end the wicked fellow is appropriately skewered by an aboriginal spear. Mr. Ladd (being a cleanliving type) heals quickly and by cur-tain-fall his torso is as good as ney. What’s more, he makes a conquest of a pert young minx whom Cap’n Mason has been playing cat and mouse with in the dog watches. That much you could probably surmise without going near the theatre, in which case there’s not much point in getting yourself shanghaied aboard the Charlotte-unless, of course, you’re crazy about keelhaulings.