The Overlanders (film)

The Overlanders
Directed byHarry Watt
Written by
Produced by
Starring
  • Chips Rafferty
  • John Nugent Hayward
  • Daphne Campbell
  • John Fernside
  • Peter Pagan
  • Helen Grieve
  • Jean Blue
CinematographyOsmond Borradaile
Edited by
Music byJohn Ireland
Production
company
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 27 September 1946 (1946-09-27) (Australia)
  • 1947 (1947) (France)
Running time
91 minutes
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • Australia
LanguageEnglish
Budget£40,000[1] or £80,000[2] or £130,000[3]
Box office£160,000 (Australia)[4]
1,143,888 admissions (France)[5]
£250,000 (total)[2]

The Overlanders is a 1946 British-Australian Western film about drovers driving a large herd of cattle 1,600 miles (2,575 km) overland from Wyndham, Western Australia through the Northern Territory outback of Australia to pastures north of Brisbane, Queensland, during World War II.

The film was the first of several produced in Australia by Ealing Studios and featured among the cast Chips Rafferty. It was an early example of the genre later dubbed the "meat pie western".

  1. ^ Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 204.
  2. ^ a b "The research bureau holds an autopsy". Sunday Mail. Brisbane. 17 February 1952. p. 11. Retrieved 28 April 2013 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ Tomholt, Sydney (23 September 1950). "FILMS Cost of Australian Productions". ABC Weekly. p. 30.
  4. ^ 'Who doesn't go to the pictures today?', The Mail (Adelaide) Saturday 22 May 1954 Supplement: Sunday Magazine p 21
  5. ^ Box office figures in 1947 France at Box Office Story