Smithy | |
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Directed by | Ken G. Hall |
Written by |
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Based on | an adaptation by Max Afford and Ken G. Hall |
Produced by | N. P. Pery |
Starring | |
Cinematography | George Heath |
Edited by | Terry Banks |
Music by | Henry Krips |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time |
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Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Budget | £53,000 [2] or £73,000 [3] |
Box office | over £50,000 (Australia) [4] £50,000 (USA) [4] |
Smithy (also known as Southern Cross in the UK and Pacific Adventure in the US) is a 1946 Australian adventure film about pioneering Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his 1928 flight across the Pacific Ocean, from San Francisco, California, United States to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. This was the first-ever transpacific flight. Kingsford Smith was the pilot of the Fokker F.VII/3m three-engine monoplane " Southern Cross ", with Australian aviator Charles Ulm as the relief pilot. The other two crew members were Americans James Warner and Harry Lyon.
In 1943 in the South-West Pacific, some Australian and American airmen discuss the story of "Smithy", Charles Kingsford Smith. The Americans are told the story by an old officer of Smithy, along with a waiter, Stringer, who knew him.
The story starts in 1917 with his recovering from a wound incurred in fighting over the Western Front. Kingsford Smith is rewarded with the Military Cross and is determined to make a career out of flying.
After the war Kingsford Smith visits America and has a brief romance with Kay Sutton but later falls in love with and marries Mary Powell.
He attempts to enter the England to Australia Air Race in 1919 but is stopped by Prime Minister Billy Hughes. Kingsford Smith then decides to become the first person to fly from the United States to Australia across the Pacific. He does the trip with Charles Ulm in an aircraft called the Southern Cross and becomes world-famous.
Kingsford Smith attempts to set up his own airline but is not successful and is forced to take people on joy flights to make a living. He breaks another record, crossing the Pacific from the Australia to the United States in a single engine aircraft with P.G. Taylor. Kingsford Smith almost dies flying to New Zealand with Bill Taylor and John Stannage, and subsequently, retires the Southern Cross.
In 1935 Kingsford Smith attempts to fly from Australia to England but disappears over the Indian Ocean.
Smithy was the idea of N.P. Pery, the managing director of Columbia Pictures in Australia. [6] The Australian government had restricted the export of capital during the war, and Pery thought making a film could use up some of that money. Pery was quoted as saying "I do not think I am indulging in Utopian fancies when I say that Australia, or rather, some spot in Australia, could be made the Hollywood of the British Commonwealth." [7] Pery approached Ken G. Hall, who was Australia's most commercially successful director, and asked him to make a film about an Australian who was well known internationally. Hall wrote that he briefly considered Don Bradman but dismissed the idea because Bradman was not known in the United States. The three main candidates were Ned Kelly, Dame Nellie Melba and Charles Kingsford Smith. Hall said he decided against Kelly because too many films had been made about him. [8] Melba was rejected because of the costs involved with producing opera sequences and the difficulty of finding an appropriate singer to stand in for Melba. [9] That left Kingsford Smith, who appealed in part because of his connection to the United States. [10]
Hall commissioned treatments from several writers, including Jesse Lasky, Jr., who was then stationed at Cinesound Productions with the US Signal Corps; Josephine O'Neill, a Sydney film critic; Kenneth Slessor, film critic and poet; and Max Afford, one of Australia's leading playwrights and radio writers. [9] Early drafts focused on Smithy's first flight across the Pacific but then Hall decided to cover most of Smithy's life. [11]
Hall felt Afford's version was the best and the two of them developed a detailed treatment. [12] Afford signed a contract in June 1944. [13]
The treatment was adapted by Alec Coppel, an Australian writer who had enjoyed success in London and returned to Australia during the war. [10] Sydney journalist Norman Ellison provided research.
Ken G. Hall looked at 60 applicants to play the title role in Smithy, screen testing eight. [14] [15]
Hall claimed the choice came down to Peter Finch and Ron Randell, a radio and theatre actor. Hall preferred Finch but sent extensive screen tests of both actors with Muriel Steinbeck back to Columbia in Hollywood. The studio picked Randell on the grounds of his greater romantic appeal. [16] [17] Muriel Steinbeck later confirmed that Hall wanted Finch but Columbia did not feel he had sufficient "sex appeal." She said that Hall then wanted Dick Bentley but Columbia did not want to cast a comedian. Ron Randell was cast instead. [18] [19]
Muriel Steinbeck was the only actor considered for the female lead in Smithy. [20] She had previously appeared with Randell in A Son is Born , a film whose release was held up to take advantage of publicity for Smithy.
Although Smithy was entirely financed by Columbia Pictures, Ken G. Hall made it using his Cinesound crew and shot it mostly at Cinesound's studio in Bondi.
The aircraft used in Smithy was the genuine Southern Cross, which had been purchased by the Australian Government 10 years earlier and refurbished by the RAAF. [21] A surplus RAAF CAC Boomerang was used in flying sequences for Kingsford Smith's Lady Southern Cross Lockheed Altair.
Two former co-pilots of Kingsford Smith, P.G. Taylor and Harry Purvis played themselves, as did former Prime Minister Billy Hughes. [22] Hall says Alec Coppel had written a scene where Kingsford Smith tried to persuade Hughes to let him compete in an air race and Hughes switches off his hearing aid. Hughes was sensitive, however, about his deafness and reference to it was removed in the shooting script. [23]
Smithy featured the first on screen appearance of noted Australian actor Charles "Bud" Tingwell who was cast as a RAAF control tower officer – winning the role as he could supply his own RAAF uniform.
Smithy had its world premiere at a gala screening in Sydney on 26 June 1946, attended by the cast and crew, the Premier of New South Wales, and Shirley Ann Richards, who was visiting Australia at the time. [24]
Reviews were generally positive, although not without criticisms. [25] [26]
Writing in 2019, Stephen Vagg described Muriel Steinbeck's "wife" part as "a decent one – she gets to flirt, and worry and fight, and the film improves immeasurably once her character becomes part of the action." [27]
Smithy was released in the United States as Pacific Adventure. The Los Angeles Times noted the film "while technically acceptable is pretty much a stereotype of all the other histories of aviation pioneering... Ron Randell makes a likeable hero." [28]
The New York Times wrote that "... it is unfortunate that the people who made this picture ... did not draw a more exciting and exacting drama out of the colourful career of the noted airman." [29]
The film was not a success in America. Randell later said, "Americans are not sufficiently familiar with the many personalities besides Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith who were depicted in the picture." [30]
Smithy was the third-most popular film released in Australia in 1946. [31]
Pery was keen for Columbia to make further films in Australia. [32] Harry Cohn, head of Columbia, however, was opposed to the idea. He later arranged for Smithy to be drastically re-cut and re-edited for its US release, calling it Pacific Adventure, removing references to Australia, along with Pery's credit. [33]
Cohn did offer Ron Randell a long-term contract in Hollywood, which the actor accepted. [34]
Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith, nicknamed Smithy, was an Australian aviation pioneer. He piloted the first transpacific flight and the first flight between Australia and New Zealand.
Kenneth George Hall was an Australian film producer and director, considered one of the most important figures in the history of the Australian film industry. He was the first Australian to win an Academy Award.
Ronald Egan Randell was an Australian actor. After beginning his acting career on the stage in 1937, he played Charles Kingsford Smith in the film Smithy (1946). He also had roles in Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947), Kiss Me Kate (1953), I Am a Camera (1955), Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961) and King of Kings (1961).
Ronald Grant Taylor was an English-Australian actor best known as the abrasive General Henderson in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO and for his lead role in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940).
The Overlanders is a 1946 British-Australian Western film about drovers driving a large herd of cattle 1,600 miles overland from Wyndham, Western Australia through the Northern Territory outback of Australia to pastures north of Brisbane, Queensland during World War II.
Cinesound Productions Pty Ltd was an Australian feature film production company, established in June 1931, Cinesound developed out of a group of companies centred on Greater Union Theatres, that covered all facets of the film process, from production, to distribution and exhibition.
Shirley Ann Richards was an Australian actress and author who achieved notability in a series of 1930s Australian films for Ken G. Hall before moving to the United States, where she continued her career as a film actress, mainly as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starlet. Her best known performances were in It Isn't Done (1937), Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938), An American Romance (1944), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). In the 1930s, she was the only Australian actor under a long-term contract to a film studio, Cinesound Productions. She subsequently became a lecturer and poet.
Frank Harvey was a British-born actor, producer, and writer, best known for his work in Australia.
The Silence of Dean Maitland is a 1934 Australian film directed by Ken G. Hall, and based on Maxwell Gray's 1886 novel of the same name. It was one of the most popular Australian films of the 1930s.
Thoroughbred is a 1936 Australian race-horse drama film directed by Ken G. Hall, partly based on the life and career of Phar Lap. Hollywood star Helen Twelvetrees was imported to Australia to appear in the film. The film also stars Frank Leighton and John Longden.
It Isn't Done is a 1937 Australian comedy film about a grazier who inherits a barony in England.
Tall Timbers is a 1937 action melodrama set in the timber industry directed by Ken G. Hall and starring Frank Leighton and Shirley Ann Richards.
Come Up Smiling is a 1939 Australian comedy film starring popular American stage comedian Will Mahoney and his wife Evie Hayes. It was the only feature from Cinesound Productions not directed by Ken G. Hall.
South West Pacific is a 1943 propaganda short Australian film directed by Ken G. Hall which focuses on Australia as the main Allied base in the South West Pacific area. Actors depict a cross section of Australians involved in the war effort.
A Son Is Born is a 1946 Australian melodrama directed by Eric Porter and starring Ron Randell, Peter Finch, and Muriel Steinbeck.
Splendid Fellows is a 1934 Australian film from director Beaumont Smith about an Englishman who comes to Australia. The cast includes Eric Colman, brother of Ronald Colman, and Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who has a cameo as himself. It was Smith's last film.
Muriel Myee Steinbeck was an Australian actress who worked extensively in radio, theatre, television and film. She is best known for her performance as the wife of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in Smithy (1946) and for playing the lead role in Autumn Affair (1958–59), Australia's first television serial.
Alec Kellaway (1894–1973) was a South African–born actor best known for his work in Australian theatre and film, notably playing a number of character roles for director Ken G. Hall. He was the brother of Cecil Kellaway. He also worked as a producer in vaudeville and helped run the Talent School at Cinesound Productions.
Ernest Gustav Brandon-Cremer was a New Zealand/Australian moviemaker, newsman, explorer and adventurer. He was a key figure in Australian aviation history, and was especially known for his documentation of Lasseter's Gold Reef as well as his photography of the Solar eclipse of 21 September 1922 at Wallal, Australia.
George Henry "Harry" Purvis, AFC was an Australian pioneer aviator, engineer, airline pilot, air-force pilot and author. He was the engineer responsible for maintenance of the famed Southern Cross aircraft. Purvis often flew as co-pilot with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and was the last person to fly the Southern Cross. Purvis was co-pilot to P. G. Taylor on the first flight across the lower Pacific Ocean from Australia to South America, landing in Chile in 1951.