Robbery Under Arms (1957 film)

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Robbery Under Arms
Robbery Under Arms (1957 film).jpg
British theatrical poster
Directed by Jack Lee
Written by Alexander Baron
W. P. Lipscomb
Based onnovel by Rolf Boldrewood
Produced by Joseph Janni
Starring Peter Finch
Ronald Lewis
Cinematography Harry Waxman
Edited by Manuel del Campo
Music by Mátyás Seiber
Production
company
The Rank Organisation
Distributed by Rank Film Distributors of America
Release date
  • 3 October 1957 (1957-10-3)(London-Premiere)
Running time
83 minutes (USA)
99 minutes (UK)
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Robbery Under Arms is a 1957 British crime film directed by Jack Lee and starring Peter Finch and Ronald Lewis. [1] [2] It was written by Alexander Baron and W. P. Lipscomb based on the 1888 Australian novel Robbery Under Arms by Thomas Alexander Browne who wrote under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood. [3] [4]

Contents

Plot

In 1865 Australia, the two Marston brothers, bold Dick and sensitive Jim, are drawn into a life of crime by their ex-convict father Ben and his friend, the famous cattle thief Captain Starlight. They help take some cattle their father and Starlight have stolen across the country to Adelaide, where they are sold, with Starlight impersonating an English gentleman claiming to own the rustled herd.

The two brothers take their share of the money and go to Melbourne. On board ship, they meet the Morrison sisters: greedy Kate and nice Jean, who are romanced by Dick and Jim respectively. They read that Starlight has been arrested, and return home, where they and their father narrowly escape arrest.

The brothers are then reunited with Starlight, who has left prison, and join him and some other men in robbing a coach, in which a trooper is shot and killed. Dick and Jim go to the gold fields to make enough money to escape to America. There, they are reunited with Kate, who is married but is still interested in Dick, and Jean, who Jim marries.

Just as the brothers are about to leave to start a new life, Captain Starlight and his gang (including Ben Marston) arrive to rob the local bank. During the robbery, several people are killed by Starlight's gang (although not by Starlight), including a mother protecting child. Jim Marston is captured by locals and is about to be lynched, but is rescued by a trooper who comes to arrest him. Dick rescues Jim from the trooper, but is killed in the attempt.

Jim hides out with Starlight and his father, but misses his wife too much and goes back to see her. Starlight and Ben Marston are killed in a shoot out with police. Jim Marston is arrested.

Cast

Production

Development

Ealing Studios had planned to make the film after The Overlanders (1946) and Eureka Stockade (1949), and they hired William Lipscomb to do the script. [6] Gregory Peck at one stage was announced as a possible star. [7]

In June 1949 Ealing announced Ralph Smart would direct the film after Bitter Springs at an estimated budget of £250,000 with John McCallum as a possible star. [8]

Ken G. Hall wanted to direct and organised a co production between Ealing and an Australian syndicate financed by Charles Munro. However plans to make the film were hampered by the closing of Pagewood Studios and the issuance of a government regulation to cap the raising of finance. [9] [10] Leslie Norman was keen to produce. [11]

In February 1956 Michael Balcon, then head of Ealing, announced he would make a film of Robbery Under Arms as well as another movie set in Australia, The Shiralee . [12] Eventually the movie would not be made by Ealing, which in 1956 left Rank to make films with MGM.

In May 1956 it was announced the Rank organisation would make Robbery Under Arms directed by Jack Lee and Joe Janni with filming to begin in December. [13] [14] In June 1956 it was announced Finch - who was just about to leave England to make The Shiralee in Australia - would play the lead in Robbery Under Arms. [15]

Lee and Janni had a big hit with the Australian-themed A Town Like Alice (1956), starring Peter Finch and written by Lipscomb. Rank put Lee and Janni under contract for two years and had Finch under contract. [16] Jack Lee later said:

I wanted to work with Finch again and I was attracted to Australia... I made a mistake choosing Robbery Under Arms, a complicated Victorian novel with masses of plots and subplots and too much moralising. However I went ahead and chose the part for Peter Finch, who complained that he was overshadowed by everyone else, and in a way he was right. Janni and I weren't happy with the script and would have liked to put it off for another year. But we were under pressure from Rank and we had to go ahead with an inadequate script. There are one or two nice scenes in it but it's too slow and talky. [16]

Filmink argued another factor in Rank agreeing to make the film was its "determination around that time to combat the threat of television by making more films overseas on location (eg Ferry to Hong Kong , Windom's Way , The Wind Cannot Read , Campbell’s Kingdom , Across the Bridge , The Spanish Gardener , Seven Thunders )." [4]

Vincent Ball, who had been in A Town Like Alice, said Finch suggested to Jack Lee that Ball and Finch play the Marsden boys but John Davis "insisted that contract artistes be used for the leads". Ball agreed to play a smaller role if he could go to Australia. He was away "ten or eleven weeks" on salary to say one line in Australia filming the rest of his scenes at Pinewood. [17]

In October 1956 Janni and Lee visited Australia to scout locations. Janni declared "Robbery Under Arms will be prettty much an old team picture" reuniting much of the cast and crew from A Town Like Alice. "It is to be a bigger picture than Alice in terms of expense and location work," he added. "We want to preserve Boldrewood's book intact although it is so vast and enormous we could easily find material for ten pictures." [18]

Shooting

Peter Finch arrived in Darwin on 30 January 1957, announcing that J. Arthur Rank would back a film for Finch to direct in Australia; Finch hoped for D'arcy Niland to the script (this project never happened.) [19] Most of the key cast were imported from Britain although some were locals such as Ursula Finlay. It was the first film for Aboriginal actor and stockman Johnny Cadell. [20]

Shooting began in January 1957 [21] on location in Australia at the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, including Port Augusta and Wilpena Pound, and near Bourke, New South Wales, with two days filming at Pagewood Studios.

In April the unit moved to the UK where interiors and exteriors were shot at Pinewood studios in Buckinghamshire. [22] [23]

During the making of the film, on-screen couple David McCallum and Jill Ireland fell in love off screen as well, and married in May. [24]

Reception

The film had its world premiere in London on 3 October 1957, the week Pinewood Studios celebrated its 21st birthday. It had dual premieres in Australia on 4 December 1957 in Port Augusta and Bourke. [25]

The film was popular at the Australian box office, although reviews were poor. [23] Filmink called the underwhelming reception to the movie "a real shame, especially as a more successful version of Robbery Under Arms might’ve encouraged Rank and Peter Finch to make more movies in Australia (Finch never came back here to work, even after the late ‘60s revival)." [4]

Critical

The Guardian called it "a very good 'Western'" with "one weaknes - a dispersal of dramtic interest among several characters." [26] The Observer thought "the film's chief fault is that there nearly isn't enough of" Peter Finch. [27]

Alexander Walker of The Birmingham Post called the film "messy... Were some of the key scenes lost on the way back? Were they left on the cutting room floor? Were they ever filmed at all?... The main charge I level against Robbery Under Arms is that no one has decided in advance on the state of the film." [28]

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This film makes disappointing use of Rolf Boldrewood's picaresque novel; eventually, it just fails to command the attention. Technically it is precise, right from the neat, plain credit titles; but the narrative is slow, blunted, rambling. The characterisation is paste-board; the acting (excepting, occasionally, David McCallum) shaky; and the treatment is never clearly romantic nor, on the other hand, naturalistic. Nothing can reconcile the genuine Australian accents of the supporting players with the spurious drawls of the British artists." [29]

Variety called it:

A well-made, straightforward drama which should click okay in British houses. As is so often the case, its American impact will depend entirely on whether its stars are sufficient magnets to attract patrons outside the British domain. The picture is part of the Rank Organization’s current policy of spotlighting the Commonwealth. Its main problem is whether it does not follow a bit too soon after “The Shiralee,” which also starred Peter Finch and the wide, open Aussie spaces... The acting is less important than the situations. With fist- fights, gunfight and a near-lynching, there is plenty of* meat for good, solid thrills. [30]

Filmink magazine called it "not a very good movie", due mostly to the script, but but said "there are many things to admire about it, such as the photography, location work, and the sheer novelty of it being a big budget movie shot in 1950s Australia. It contains a genuinely sensational bank robbery sequence, and the final shoot-out has visual flair." [4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Robbery Under Arms". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 7 January 2025.
  2. ↑ "Robbery under Arms (1957)". Archived from the original on 15 January 2009.
  3. ↑ Goble, Alan (1 January 1999). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   9783110951943 – via Google Books.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Vagg, Stephen (7 March 2025). "Wrecking Australian stories: the 1957 film version of Robbery Under Arms". Filmink. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
  5. ↑ "Aboriginal actor visits London". The Australian Women's Weekly . 19 June 1957. p. 39. Retrieved 27 February 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  6. ↑ "FILM WORLD WEATHER IN AUSTRALIA DISAPPOINTS STUDIO". The West Australian . Perth. 3 November 1949. p. 16. Retrieved 14 February 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "News from studios". The Australian Women's Weekly . 24 November 1954. p. 20. Retrieved 27 February 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ "John McCallum may play Capt. Starlight". The News . Adelaide. 28 July 1949. p. 19. Retrieved 5 June 2020– via Trove.
  9. ↑ "Ealing halts all Aussie prod". Variety. 23 January 1952. p. 11.
  10. ↑ "Decision a blow to film industry". The Mail . Adelaide. 26 January 1952. p. 2. Retrieved 9 November 2014– via National Library of Australia.
  11. ↑ "LONDON". The Advertiser . Adelaide. 31 October 1952. p. 2. Retrieved 11 January 2016– via National Library of Australia.
  12. ↑ "Balcon reveals plans to go ahead on prod of Aussie pic 'Robbery'". Variety. 29 February 1956. p. 13.
  13. ↑ "Australia scene of big films". The Sydney Morning Herald. 13 May 1956. p. 64.
  14. ↑ "Filmmakers heading for Australia". The Age. 22 May 1956. p. 13.
  15. ↑ "Peter Finch's plans". The Sydney Morning Herald. 4 June 1956. p. 3.
  16. 1 2 Brian MacFarlane, An Autobiography of British Cinema, Methueun 1997 p 357-358
  17. ↑ McFarlane, Brian (1997). An autobiography of British cinema : as told by the filmmakers and actors who made it. p. 56.
  18. ↑ "Film man seeking 'dozen real Australians]". The Age. 19 October 1956. p. 3.
  19. ↑ "Peter Finch to direct film here". The Age. 31 January 1957. p. 10.
  20. ↑ "He dreams of riches and a farm". The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 April 1957. p. 72.
  21. ↑ "Rank to Make 23 British Pix in 57". Variety. 2 January 1957. p. 10.
  22. ↑ "BUSHRANGING CLASSIC". The Australian Women's Weekly . 19 June 1957. p. 40. Retrieved 27 February 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  23. 1 2 Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 225
  24. ↑ "A REBEL GETS ANGRY". The Australian Women's Weekly . 20 August 1958. p. 73. Retrieved 27 February 2012– via National Library of Australia.
  25. ↑ "Aust film in dual premiere". The Sydney Morning Herald. 13 November 1957. p. 5.
  26. ↑ "New films in London". The Guardian. 5 October 1957. p. 3.
  27. ↑ "At the films". The Observer. 6 October 1957. p. 19.
  28. ↑ Walker, Alex (6 October 1957). "At the films". The Observer. p. 19.
  29. ↑ "Robbery Under Arms" . The Monthly Film Bulletin . 24 (276): 140. 1 January 1957 – via ProQuest.
  30. ↑ "Robbery Under Arms". Variety. 23 October 1957. p. 6.
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