Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Saturday 10 February 1945, page 9


15 DOCUMENTARY EPIC

A USTRALIA'S war to

the fall of Lae is the ambitious canvas cover-ed by the 125-minute documentary epic "Sons of the Anzacs" released h\r fha Austral ian War

-o --~~" ' '

Memorial, and scheduled for early screening in Hobart. Compiled from official Commonwealth films, the picture includes the nine campaigns of the AIF, the Militia in the Pacific War, and the parts played by the RAN and the RAAF. Taken from the archives, the sequences which make up this film should provide entertainment, reminiscence, educa-tion, and morale boost. The release in Tasmania is through Greater Union Theatres.

JN this war the Australian Army

has fought on many battle-fronts, and the unusual diversity of the types of warfare in which it has participated is unfolded in "Sons

of the Anzacs."

It has campaigned across -the sands of Libya, withstood months of siege in Tobruk, fought on the snow-line of Greek mountains, battled against the massed air forces of Germany in Crete, experi-enced two extremely difficult with-drawal and evacuation movements, traversed Syria from south to north, hacked its way through the jungles of Malaya and New Guinea, and harassed the Japs in Java and

Timor.

Australian airmen have fought over every battlefront in the war, and the Navy has been in every major British encounter, as well as the actions north of Australia against the Japs.

So that a faithful record of the part our men have played might be preserved for the nation in the archives of the Australian War Memorial at Canberra, the Com-monwealth Government sent cam-eramen with them into the smoke of the battlefields. It is from the pictorial records they sent back that "Sons of the Anzacs" has been compiled.

The picture follows the fortunes of our fighting services in Australian territory and overseas, and covers the scene from the taking of Bardia in Libya, to the fighting for Lae in New Guinea in September, v1943. Every phase of the serviceman's life is depicted as he lived it in the transports and in action, in the ships

of our Navy at sea, in the planes of the RAAF on operations, and in the training camps of the Middle East, where the AIF prepared itself for its early campaigns.

Fiction films can, at best, achieve only a certain realism. "Sons of the Anzacs" is not "realistic"; it is reality.

* * . * +

SEQUENCES in the film are by

Frank Hurley, the late Damien Parer, Frank Bagnall, William Carty, and Roy Driver, and com-mentary by Chester Wilmot, Peter Finch, and Parer.

Frank Hurley was a pioneer of the film industry in Australia. He has a fine record of polar explora-tory photography, and was an offic-ial photographer with the AIF in

Damien Paree

i rance and Pal-estine in 1917-18.

He went to Egypt with the AIF in 1940.

Parer attained an international reputation for his work in "Ko-koda Trail," "Battle of tlie Bismarck Sea," and "Men of Timor."

Bagnall cover-ed the Malaya campaign, but

lost most of his films and equipment escaping from Singapore.

Produced by Arthur E. Higgins and Neville R. Bletcher, with con-tinuity by the well-known ABC and BBC commentator, "Sons of the Anzacs" promises something out of the ordinary.