Terras Bravias

I have always considered this underrated western from Australia and produced with UK as effective and excellent as an Hollywood product. Even better, not because of the directing, but because of the plot. It saves many unusual elements, characterization that you don't necessarily have in US westerns from this fifties period. This western is mostly shown as a tragedy, bleak, dark, gritty, where the audience can feel empathy for all those bad or "less bad" characters. Of, course I advise you to watch this western from Australia. There was a batch of those after this movie. It is not the only western but I guess the first and one of the best. If not the best.

I first saw this film when still at school, in my final year. At that time, I thought it was a passable "western" but it lacked the Hollywood glitz to which I'd become accustomed and acculturated.

Fifty years haven't dimmed my appreciation of the story and film, but those years have readjusted my focus on the quality and veracity of the production. By today's digital standards, the colour saturation is just too pronounced, but given the times, it was ideal to convey the stark contrasts of the Australian outback – the parched land, the unrelenting sun and the tough times experienced by the settlers.

The story is basic: two brothers get caught up in cattle rustling with Captain Starlight (Peter Finch) who gets caught eventually, while the brothers escape to go off to the Bendigo gold fields to make honest money, they hope. Unhappily for them, they get embroiled in a bank robbery staged by Starlight and his gang and, once again, are on the run, one and all.

And, that sets up the final action sequence whereby a large body of troopers attacks the mountain hideout of Starlight's gang, with inevitable results. That shootout is still one of the finest ever put to film: realistic and beautifully photographed from many camera angles, providing the viewer a box seat of what such a battle must be like.

Peter Finch acts superbly: witty, urbane, considerate, competent and very tough – all in one. Who really knows what the real Starlight was like, the one who actually roamed and robbed the areas around southern Queensland and northern New South Wales? I think Finch pulls off a reasonable portrayal.

The rest of the cast is adequate to very good, with Maureen Swanson the standout performer as Kate Morrison, the woman spurned by Dick Marston (Ron Lewis); not a woman to be tossed aside, as he finds out. David McCallum, in his fifth movie, plays the other brother, Jim Marston who gets involved with Kate's sister, Jean (Jill Ireland).

As a piece of Australiana, it's worth the time to see. As a story about the bush ranging days of early Australia, it has its moments, particularly the final shootout.

Recommended for all.

Perhaps what is most distinguishing about "Robbery Under Arms" is its very noticeable utilisation of the 50's, garish Technicolor process. This was, I believe, the first time a feature length film was photographed in such a manner in Australia and based on the novel by Rolf Boldrewood.

It's also good to see Peter Finch before he relocated to his native motherland. Its good to see that Australia recognised his sterling presence leagues before it was realised in Britain, and then in turn, America. Here he steals the show as Captain Starlight - representing the typical Aussie larrikin.

A western in everything but name and not a bad one at that, Jack Lee's "Robbery Under Arms" is set during the same period as most westerns, the 1860's, but in Australia where Peter Finch's Captain Starlight leads a small gang of outlaws stealing cattle and robbing banks. Ronald Lewis and David McCallum are the brothers who follow their father into the gang looking for a bit of excitement. Lee makes good use of the Australian landscape which is superbly photographed by Harry Waxman and he never skimps on the action which is plentiful. No classic but very enjoyable nevertheless.

Although officially the star, Peter Finch as bushranger Captain Starlight is really only peripheral to the narrative, whose myriad twists and turns clearly mark it as an adaptation of a novel.

Probably the closest Rank ever came to a western, many of the staple ingredients - prospecting for gold, cattle stealing, robbing stagecoachs - are included; but thanks to Matyas Sieber's score it certainly doesn't sound like one.

As usual we get no sense of the oppressive heat and enormous creepie-crawlies found Down Under, but the presence of a pair of aborigines in the cast makes a refreshing change.