Kangarù

"Kangaroo" is an unusual film because it was made by Hollywood...on location in Australia. However, oddly, the stars are all Brits or Irish or Americans!

When the story begins, two crooks, Richard and John (Peter Lawford and Richard Boone), meet up and decide to fleece a nice old guy (Finlay Currie). However, as the film progresses, the nicer of the two crooks has second thoughts.

The problems for me are that the story never is very interesting and both leading men were awful....so I had a hard time caring for either. Overall, a mildly interesting time passer, and it's in color, but otherwise uninspired.

You look at this cast, Peter Lawford, Maureen O'Hara, Chips Rafferty, Richard Boone and Finlay Currie, and you'd think this would be a winner. Well, not quite. The story line which draws on the fortunes of an Irish immigrant (Currie) and his daughter (O'Hara)to rural Australia just kind of wears out. Boone, of course, is at his hammy best as the bad guy and Lawford, in his pre-Ratpack days, provides the romantic interest but the story just seems to run out of steam, even with the efforts of veteran Aussie character actor, Chips Rafferty. If it shows up one night on the late show, you might want to watch it but I doubt if you'll remember much of it afterwards.

Peter Lawford and Richard Boone are two criminals who befriend on old drunk (Finley Currie) who turns out to be the rancher father of Maureen O'Hara who's been looking for him for two weeks. All this takes place, and entirely filmed, in the wonderful outback of Australia where you see the Aborigines dance for rain, kangaroos hopping, and flocks of birds flying around. Plenty of exciting scenes of stampede herding of steer and windmill stopping and fights between Lawford and Boone. One part I wasn't too crazy about was one when O'Hara and Lawford were about to kiss in the middle scene since Peter was supposedly passing himself off as the long-lost son of her father! Good thing it didn't happen then! Pretty good direction from old pro Lewis Milestone. Worth a look for old-time movie buffs.

Being half Australian myself and knowing something about Australia, I really liked the movie. In addition, I am a "Paladin" fan so it was great to see Boone in the movie. As far as icons, I saw Chips Rafferty, koala bears, kangaroos, joey's (small kangaroos), two-up (the gambling using two coins tossed up in the air after resting on a piece of wood), the word tucker (food), cockatoos (the white bird), and the Australian Kingfisher bird. There were also the aborigines aka Abos (natives) with their boomerangs and spears with throwing boards (they help throw the spears). Shown too were the Abos on a walkabout. That is where they travel in groups. There was also drought, bush fires, and the men carrying on their shoulders the short whip they use for the cattle. Also mentioned was how good the Abos are in tracking. They are world famous as being the best in the world. Like Chips said, they can track a man by the shadow the man left on a rock a week before. I kept waiting to see what else showed up. For additional information, I can throw a boomerang--ask me how! All in all a good and interesting movie.

Maureen O'Hara, in her prime, is wasted in this rather dreary , pointless, outback yarn, shot in Technicolor, on location in Australia. Fortunately, she would rebound with 2 of her best roles, in "The Quiet Man" and "Against All Flags", where she had more interesting leading men(John Wayne, Errol Flynn) than the badly miscast urbane Peter Lawford, barely recognizable behind all that facial hair.

In a minimal effort to justify the title, we do see a couple of roos hopping about in one scene. But, at times, we see many more thirsty, hungry , cattle, who only have wind-blown dust to eat much of the time. The plot is an unfocused mishmash, that never really grabs our attention and never comes to any dramatic conclusion, aside from a big rainstorm that finally ends the long drought, that has the townies doing 'a rain dance'. Shortly before this, Lawford and Boone engage in a bizarre fight with bullwhips and a rifle, after being spotted in the bush by a couple of lawmen. ......Maureen, after begging to be included, wanted out after discovering what it was really going to be like. Perhaps the only saving grace for contemporary audiences was the brief shots of some of the native animals and natives, at a time when such weren't commonly available.