peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2023 02 04 TheOverlanders

The Overlanders (1946)

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Gestured at by Dean Ashenden as a romantic take on (functional) relations between Australian Aborigines and settlers. The first feature that Ealing Studios made in Australia. A wartime (1942) black-and-white cattle drove from Wyndham to Rockhampton (or thereabouts; things get vague east of Anthony's Lagoon). There's a stampede! — even Rocky Kangaroo: The Australian Story / Red River / Australia had a stampede, but these guys got there before all those. Chips Rafferty plays a mostly laconic slave-driving drover who takes a moment in the middle to express well-rehearsed anti-exploitation sentiments about the Northern Territory and a touching faith that government will not screw it up.

Bosley Crowther at the time. All the details at Ozmovies. Wikipedia tells me romantic interest Daphne Campbell was born in Orange and fled to Queensland and the N.T. at a young age.