Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Thursday 24 August 1950, page 13
Film News And Features
130 Aboriginal Tribesmen
Steal Sbow In
New Picture
ONE hundred and thirty South Australian aborigines co-star with Tommy Trinder, Chips Rafferty, Gordon Jackson and Jean Blue in Ealing Studio's "Bitter Springs."
THE film was produced
by Michael Balcon and directed by Ralph
Smart.
Vaughan Williams, one of England's most noted com-posers, has written special music for the film; it is played by the London Philharmonia
Orchestra.
The aborigines came from Ooldea, about 300 miles from the studio's location site at Quorn, where most of the film
was shot.
This was the first time a large number of Australian natives had been used in a modern film of this kind.
The experiment was entirely
successful.
Many film-goers will prob-ably say that the aborigines have stolen the show.
They prove to be such fine natural actors, with their graceful body movements, their dramatic expressions of emo-tion and their joyous laughter,
that "Bitter Springs" may start a run of movies utilising' their unique talents.
The story deals with the problems faced by white settlers when they find that their outback Crown lease in-cludes a spring which has been used by an aboriginal tribe for
untold centuries.
SINCE the natives have no-
where else to go, a bitter conflict develops between the aborigines and the whites.
Tommy Trinder, comedian, and Gordon Jackson, Scottish character actor, are well-known in British films.
Jackson is currently to be seen in another Ealing film in Sydney, "Whisky Galore."
The leading Australians in the cast are Chips Rafferty (who has the starring role), Jean Blue, Nonnie Piper, Michael Pate, the boy actor, Nickey Yardley, the aboriginal actor, Henry Murdoch, and Bud Tingwell.
Tommy Trinder and Nonnie Piper in "Bitter Springs."