I love the international presentation of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Beginning in France via Denmark and Germany, moving to some mostly Italian short films and continuing with an Australian feature, and that's just the first two days of a week-long program. As one might assume from the title, "The Man from Kangaroo" is a rollicking affair that hops all over the place, but the throughline is its Australian version of Hollywood star Douglas Fairbanks, Snowy Baker. There's the same Western-bound athleticism and promotion of a form of masculinity to largely audiences of boys, rescuing damsels and roughing up the baddies in a series of stunts, all done with a big grin on his face. Snowy even jumps on horses like Doug.
Casting Baker as a parson who's delighted to hang around young boys who often are barely even dressed (one fighting leaves his backside exposed through torn pants, and the parson shows off his diving skills as other boys sit around in their swimwear) comes across as awkward nowadays in the wake of Church sexual abuse scandals, especially given that after the townsfolk complain about him, he's simply moved to a more "congenial" parish (although he also gives that up for a rougher, Wild West type locale). Moreover, it seems an odd mixture of two types of American Westerns around the time, of the Fairbanks stunt-work variety and the William S. Hart evangelizing sort. One scene, the pastor is a barrel of laughs and the next he's preaching against the ills of the devil's brew.
The extent to which "The Man from Kangaroo" refuses to pick a lane and stick with it extends beyond the Baker's parson. The film is essentially two loosely-connected short films within one feature. What begins as an idyllic springtime love triangle with episodic scenes with the kids or the congregation and melodrama over the love interest's inheritance, as well as nauseatingly folksy art title cards, abruptly shifts into wild frontier chases on horseback and a battle over establishing a church, as well as another love triangle. Even a beautifully-composed opening shot blocked and framed by foliage eventually gives way to more prosaic cinematography. It's as though the filmmakers quit halfway through their own scenario and started another one all within the same film. And, only the flimsiest of contrivances brings Baker's parson and Brownie Vernon's Muriel together in another plot, both geographically and narratively. See, she arrives in the same town because she's there to visit the Parsons family... yup, not the parson's family, but the Parsons we never meet that just happens to bring her back together with the parson. Not very creative in the writing department.
Add to this that Baker shows off both his real-world skill in boxing and swimming and diving, and I would think that there's supposed to be some theme of duality underlying all of this, but there's nothing there as far as I can see. There are other things here that make little sense, such as the parson waiting for a man to be clubbed over the head before he intervenes to apprehend the criminals--why not stop what he clearly knew was going to happen before it did? But, such questions seem beside what's clearly the intent here to base a bunch of action and stunt-work around an athletic star and maybe lure some of the same audience that Hollywood Westerns were attracting.
