Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1931 - 1954), Monday 11 December 1950, page 3


Film Work Delayed On 'Kangaroo'

Fran NORM AN MEABES

PT. AUGUSTA, Dec. 10.

Camera work on the South Australian scenes »f the 20th Century-Fox Technicolor film 'Kan-

garoo has been postponed from Monday to Wednesday. The first sequences then will be on board the Moonta in Spencer Gulf if a berth can be found at Whyalla on Tuesday to snip the gear. Director Lewis Milestone is sure that lost time will be made up and that the very good progress made in Sydney will be repeated at the homestead setting on the dry stony land, almost gibber* country, 13 miles outside Port Augusta. The delay has been due to the army-like logistics of moving a great road convoy from Sydney.

Nobody has claimed the 'Kangaroo' film to be an epic, but now that writer Harry Kleiner has revised the script, Lewis Milestone classifies it as 'a personal dramatic story, laid against the Australian scene.' Technicolor would not be used for a 'quickie.' Mr. Milestone regards the scenery around Port Augusta as excellent for his purpose to show a whole section of the country in a drought Numbers of locations around foothills and between here and Whyalla have been picked out. Kangaroos Wanted

Mr. Milestone says as many kangaroos as can be got together will be used to show a mob of 'roos rushing the only waterhole left moist during a dry spell, but so far the unit does not possess a kangaroo of its own. 'We are not interviewing actors; we have enough. We are only interviewing kangaroos' said Mr. Colin Hall, who is responsible for finding kangaroos and cattle. 'We would like to get in touch with anyone with expert knowledge of 'roos in South Australia.'

An offer of kangaroos at £5 a head has been received. Aborigines from Ooldea taking part in the film wilT show a rain-making corroboree, but the result will be shown to be a dust storm. Port Augusta people are surprised to find wind machines installed to produce artificial dust storms. Various aboriginal instruments, including didgeridoos, are included, but the research department is checking to what parts of the country these properly belong. Cattle from the Mount Ebor area and cattle bones from the north are arriving at the camp. Three local girls and women, to appear in a Port Augusta street scene of early 1900, with dust heaped against the buildings, were selected on Saturday and will be costumed in a day or two. Maureen OUara. with other members of the company, saw her own film 'Shores of Tripoli' at the Town Hall Theatre on Friday night.

Yesterday, at an RSL Christmas party, she received a parcel from the tree for her daughter, Bronwyn Price, exactly similar to the parcels Port Augusta girls received. Finlay Currie told stories to amuse the children and adults. Both attended Mass this morning with others of the Port Augusta film colony. Fly Nuisance - Maureen OUara is facing the fly nuisance with two fly sprays and is pleased to find that the camp and location areas are to be sprayed with DDT. 'My complaint is that your South Australian flies stick,' she said. 'We are dealing with them in Shamrock Lodge with a control campaign of regular spraying. It is no use waiting to shoot until he makes himself a nuisance. We have regular spraying times.'