The Lighthorsemen

This is an excellent film with surely the finest cavalry charge ever filmed. In this movie the horse is King and the care taken to illustrate the vital interaction between these magnificent animals and their riders is great to behold. The acting and direction are good without the need for big names. It has had a number of releases, the best being a 2.35 wide screen laser disc version in the USA. Australia has released a DVD version but it is dreadfully truncated being cut to 1.78 from the vastly more meaningful aspect ratio of the laser disc. On the big screen this film makes a fantastic impact and every effort should be made to see the original wide screen version in this way. Highly recommended.

This colossal 1987 production - believe it or not - from RKO PICTURES is an Australian film closely resembling LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in its intent and rightly compared to ZULU. With a huge cast of Oz actors and directed by PHAR LAP (look it up) warhorse Simon Wincer it is basically about the last massive charge in the Middle East desert during World War One....an event still on the yearly Australian military forces roster of "Anzac" celebrations. Many other comments on this site will give you details of the history of the event and rightly applaud this lavish spectacular film. RKO Pictures had reformed with some co financing in the 80s and this is one of their few productions. BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE and THE BORDER are two others that spring to mind produced with Universal Pictures. With a $7 million budget and all of it on screen THE LIGHTHORSE became the last of the truly international films from Australia in the 80s. Others of this time are GALLIPOLI and CAREFUL HE MIGHT HEAR YOU and THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER and WE OF THE NEVER NEVER...each are films made with a lavish widescreen cinema release in mind and each huge Oz successes. THE LIGHTHORSEMEN is well worth the 140 minutes or so of carefully paced storytelling, all laced with Aussie humor and superb design and photography. The charge in the last two reels is truly breathtaking and on a cinema screen was particularly overwhelming, rivaling the battle charge in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA for sheer thrilling visuals. No CGI in this film... it is all real and scary and played and filmed for keeps. One thrill for cinema owners of the day was to have the film commence with the original cinema scope RKO logo...beeping away from the tower on top of the world. Wonderful!

This impressive flick is based on a true story and most of the characters in the film were based on real people and dealing with the continued coming of age of the Australian nation and its soldiers . The film follows Four Australians, Frank (Gary Sweet), Scotty (Jon Blake who was injured in a car accident and he suffered permanent paralysis and brain damage until his recent death) an Irish-Australian, Chiller (Tim McKenzie) and Tas (John Walton) in Palestine in 1917, part of the 4th Light Horse Brigade of the British and Commonwealth Dominion forces. When Frank is wounded and dies of his wounds, he is replaced by Dave (Peter Phelps). Dave finds himself unable to fire his weapon in combat and is transferred to the Medical Corps, where he will not need to carry a weapon, but where he will still be exposed to the fighting . After the Second Battle of Gaza ended in complete failure, General Archibald Murray (Tony Bonner) , the commander in chief of the British forces in Egypt and Palestine, was replaced by the distinguished cavalry commander, General Edmund Allenby (Anthony Hawkins) , formerly the commander of the British Third Army on the Western Front to carry out the British plan the capture of Beersheba. During an attack by Turkish cavalry, Major Richard Meinertzhagen (Anthony Andrews) deliberately leaves behind documents indicating that the attack on Beersheba will only be a diversion. At the ending there takes place the Battle of Beersheba (Turkish: Birüssebi Savaşı) that was one critical element of a wider British offensive, known as the Third Battle of Gaza, aimed at breaking the Ottoman defensive line that stretched from Gaza on the Mediterranean shore to Beersheba ; it took place on 31 October 1917, as part of the Sinai and Palestine campaign during World War I . Notable was the charge of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade, which covered some 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) to overrun and capture the last remaining Ottoman trenches, and secure the surviving wells at Birüssebi . The total losses incurred by the Desert Mounted Corps was 53 men killed and 144 wounded. The heaviest Allied losses were suffered by the British infantry of XX Corps, which lost 116 killed in action, although the total number of men killed during the battle from the British force was far greater, totalling 171 men.

It follows in the wake of other Australian New Wave war movies such as Breaker Morant (1980), Gallipoli (1981), and the 5-part TV series Anzacs (1985). Recurring issues of these films include the Australian identity , such as mateship and friendship , ANZAC spirit , the loss of innocence in war, and breathtaking battles spectacularly filmed . Acceptable acting from main and support cast including prestigious Aussie/English actors such as Anthony Andrews , Shane Bryant , Sigrid Thornton , Tony Bonner , Gary Tweed , Bill Kerr , though none of the performances are really bad, but none are very good . Gorgeous outdoors are well photographed by cameraman Dan Cundey . Despite being set in Palestine and Egypt, the film was shot entirely on location in Victoria and Hawker, South Australia . Rousing and emotive musical score was composed by Mario Millo. It was nominated for Best Achievement in Cinematography and won an Australian Film Institute award in 1988 for Best Original Music Score and another for Best Achievement in Sound. It grossed a lot of money at the box office in Australia . Sensational directorial by the notorious filmmaker Simon Wincer, a Western expert, as he emigrated Hollywood and subsequently directed to Tom Selleck in ¨Monte Walsh¨ , ¨Crossfire trail¨ and ¨Quigley Down Under¨ to Paul Hogan in ¨Relampago Jack¨ and ¨Cocodrile Dundee in L.A.¨ and usually directs episodes for TV mini-series, such as ¨Into the West¨, ¨The Ponderosa¨ , ¨Lonesome Dove¨ and ¨The adventures of young Indiana Jones¨ , among others . Rating: good for the sensitive direction and proficient film-making ; the result is a sort of pacifist-aggressive war adventure . Worthwhile watching .

This movie also has to go on my "desert island" list. What most people will say is that the first hour is about as exciting as watching paint dry, which is true to a point. But wars are often played like chess, and if you don't know the board you'll never understand the game. It's therefore necessary, though somewhat tedious, to show the situation, terrain, weather, and overall political climate to get to the historical charge. The Germans are played perhaps a little too stiffly, and the one Aussie who couldn't shoot a human and became a medic was perhaps given a little too much screen time. As for the charge itself, you can hear your heart beating faster as you literally smell the sweat from the horses. The two-mile charge against an entrenched enemy supported with machine gun, razor wire, and cannon is intense beyond words, and stands as some of the most awesome cinematography I've ever seen. Actual casualty stats are listed, which are surprisingly low. As for how the horses were handled, not one was injured-a feat you'll scarcely believe after having seen the charge. The Lighthorsemen, unlike Gallipoli, is well worth a look. -Chuck

A First World War Australian cavalry -- sorry, mounted infantry -- film set in the Holy Land, that's not something one tends to see every day. So, for me, the fact that, yes, the characters and situations can be a little clichéd at times is far outweighed by the novelty of the whole scenario. Quibbles are easy to put to one side.

The cavalry distinction is important. Cavalry would be armed with carbines and sabres. Mounted infantry have rifles and dismount in order to fight. This subtlety plays a part in the outcome.

A series of small skirmishes heightens tension within the film until the exciting finale, when there is a fantastic, large scale, cav ... mounted infantry charge which got my pulse racing. You'll recall something similar in David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia". This set piece is bigger. Johnny Turk was the villain that time too.

This being an Australian Imperial Force meets the British Army sort of film, there is bound to be a little Pommy-bashing going 'round. When I lived briefly in Australia a decade ago, I found Pommy-bashing to be the single unattractive facet to the Australian national character. (The Kiwis don't do it. We like Poms here too. Pity the Dominions can't agree on that one.) So while some of the Poms in this film might be a few sheep short of a paddock, still there *is* balance, with one Pom who is much cleverer than the average. Bashing even works its way into the plot, a nice touch that.

The film does not use an excessive amount of Strine lingo -- billy, tucker -- so very little acclimatization is necessary for the uninitiated.

I can't vouch for the overall authenticity of this film. But I did notice that campaign map in the Turkish commander's office. It's labelled in Arabic only. Egypt is identified as "Misr". Geez, that is the correct Arabic name. And the Ottomans were still using the Arabic alphabet at the time. (It's Atatürk after the war who switched Turkish over to the Roman alphabet.) The thing's fair dinkum, mate. If they cared enough to get details like that right, then I'm sure that says a lot about the effort put into the film as a whole.

There is an earlier Australian film about the Light Horse I'd like to see, "Forty Thousand Horsemen" from 1940 or '41 (sources differ). Finding a copy of that film in this hemisphere though would be extraordinary, a bit like finding a North American who likes Vegemite.