| Sons of Matthew | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Charles Chauvel |
| Written by | Charles Chauvel Elsa Chauvel Maxwell Dunn |
| Based on | Non-fiction by Bernard O'Reilly |
| Produced by | Charles Chauvel |
| Starring | Michael Pate Ken Wayne Tommy Burns |
| Narrated by | Wilfred Thomas |
| Cinematography | Carl Kaiser Bert Nicholas |
| Edited by | Terry Banks |
| Music by | Henry Krips |
Production companies | Greater Union Cinemas Universal-International |
| Distributed by | Universal-International Umbrella Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 107 min. (Australia) 97 min. (US) |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £120,000[1] or £500,000[2] |
| Box office | over £50,000 (Australia)[3] |
Sons of Matthew is a 1949 Australian film directed and produced and co-written by Charles Chauvel. The film was shot in 1947 on location in Queensland, Australia, and the studio sequences in Sydney. Sons of Matthew took 18 months to complete, but it was a great success with Australian audiences when it finally opened in December 1949.
Sons of Matthew is a legendary film in the history of Australian cinema, partly because of the adverse conditions in which it was made. Maxwell Dunn wrote later in his book How they Made Sons of Matthew that, during filming, it was the wettest season in 80 years in Queensland. For UK and US release Universal-International cut the film by 30 minutes, added some American narration and renamed it The Rugged O'Riordans.[4]
Filmink wrote the movie "falls into the "pioneering family" subgenre of Western like Little House on the Prairie or Cimarron – stories about people hacking homes out of the wilderness, falling in and out of love, fighting disease/prejudice/Indians/whoever. Most tend to be driven by female leads but this is about a set of brothers, although there is a smurfette, Wendy Gibb, loved by Michael Pate and Ken Wayne. It is more melodrama than Western, but it feels influenced by Westerns in its pace and action."[5]