L'homme de la rivière d'argent

This movie is both perfect and imperfect. Perfect because it has amazing horse riding scenes, beautiful cinematography and music, wonderful acting from Jack Thompson who captures the quintessential Clancy of the Overflow of Australian legend, and a great performance from Tom Burlinson, and showcases the skills of the 'real deal' cattlemen of the high country who acted as extras in the horse chase scenes, and finally because it can bring a tear to the eye the way Banjo Paterson's poem has for 120 years. This film was clearly a work of love and that is wonderfully conveyed.

However it's also imperfect because Kirk Douglas simply doesn't work in this context, and his two roles seem at times ridiculous. The storyline also meanders around at times, mostly in relation to one of Douglas's two characters, and it just seems a pity that an otherwise wonderful film has these flaws.

This is a movie to stir the heart, and well worth watching, and the horse chase scenes in the movie are now as much a part of Australia's culture as the original poem.

The Man from Snowy River may not be the best acting, the best directing or the most exciting movie around, but it is one of the most magical. I loved it when I first saw it as a child and it is still one of my favourite movies at 31 years of age. I think the thing which makes it so special is that it doesn't have violence, nudity or profanity that so many movies have now in order to make them exciting. It is simply a nice old fashioned family movie that has a timelessness about it, like any of the classics. They simply don't make them like this anymore - unfortunately.

I must confess that I watched this film because I am a Kirk Douglas fan and I certainly was not disappointed in the dual performance he gives as two brothers, one an owner of the Australian equivalent of the Ponderosa and his hermit brother who lives up in the mountains among the wild horses and befriends young Tom Burlinson who becomes the man from Snowy River.

The film is a dramatization of a wild horse roundup such as you would have seen in the American West although American fans might be first thrown by use of the Aussie term 'brumbies'. What the origin of that idiom is I don't know, but for us Yanks just think 'mustang' and it will all become clear.

In fact I just finished a book on Australian general Sir Thomas Blamey and it is mentioned that during his boyhood in Wagga Wagga, he broke and rode 'brumbies.'

And of course the title and part of the plot is based on A.B. "Banjo" Patterson's poem. Patterson himself appears as a passing character in the film and presumably he was inspired by the incidents to write that poem.

Patterson for Australians is sort of a combination of Bret Harte and Mark Twain for Americans. That poem has a nice style and hopefully the poem The Man From Snowy River will be come as known in the western world at large as say Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade or Kipling's Gunga Din. In fact like in this film, Rudyard Kipling appears as a passing character in George Stevens's Gunga Din and fulfilled the same function there.

If the Australians felt they needed someone with the international star status of Kirk Douglas to open up the foreign market for this film, all well and good. I just hope Kirk's presence in the film did just that for this fine piece of entertainment.

And this review is dedicated to a couple Australian bull riders from the Professional Bull Riders whom I happened to meet, champions from the land down under, Jared Farley and Brendan Clark. No doubt descendants of the men who rode and broke those brumbies back in the day.

Shawshank is superb. Roman Holiday is perfect. Raiders is a blast. But The Man from Snowy River has been, is, and always will be my favorite movie. Some movies just match your personality more than others, trumping any technical deficiencies they may have. No, Snowy River doesn't have the best acting, the best screenplay, the best direction. But in all of them it's great, and the combination of the story, the cast, the scenery, and music (Bruce Rowland deserved an Oscar for his score) is much greater than the sum of its parts. For me, it's everything a movie ought to be: uplifting, heartwarming, optimistic, romantic, adventurous. It swept me away when I was 13 and its magic hasn't dimmed at 34. What a wonderful movie.

The Man from Snowy River is a family favorite. The cinematography of this film was breath-taking. The love story was convincing and the acting was superb. Kirk Douglas plays both the father and the brother and although the plot is somewhat contrived, it is set up extremely well. All of the elements work to make a good movie and one that I watch over and over. The scenes of the Australian mountains and the horses along with the musical score make this a very picturesque, romantic, and warm film. A romance and an action-adventure movie rolled into one which can charm a woman and still be a manly film. The 2nd movie Return to Snowy River was a worthy sequel and Tom Burlinson as Jim Craig does an excellent job in both films. If you are a horse lover, I would definitely recommend this film.