The Blue Lightning

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The Blue Lightning
Directed byLee Philips
Written byWilliam Kelly
Produced byRoss Matthews
Starring Sam Elliott
Rebecca Gilling
John Meillon
Robert Coleby
Max Phipps
Robert Culp
Jack Davis
Production
companies
Roadshow, Coote & Carroll
Distributed byChannel 7
Release date
  • 1986 (1986)
Running time
96 mins
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2.55 million [1]

The Blue Lightning is a 1986 Australian film directed by Lee Philips and starring Sam Elliott, Rebecca Gilling, John Meillon, Robert Coleby, Max Phipps, and Robert Culp. [2] It was created for US network television and was filmed in Broken Hill, Sydney, the Blue Mountains and Camden. [3]

Contents

Plot

Easygoing San Francisco private detective Harold "Harry" Wingate gets a six-figure offer from millionaire Brutus Cathcart to travel to Australia and retrieve Cathcart's prized opal from former Irish Republican Army terrorist sharpshooter Lester McInally. With the help of an Aborigine rancher and revenge-minded widow Kate McQueen, Wingate battles McInally and his minions, who have taken over an entire outback town.

Cast

Reception

Bryan-College Station Eagle's Jim Butler writes "The Blue Lightning is nothing but two-hours of cartoon violence played without humor" [4] Barbara Hooks in the Age "The first, and hopefully the last, movie for CBS network television to be filmed in Australia, it represents not so much a civilised exchange between the Australian and United States television industries as a cultural smash and grab raid." She finishes "No one expects American telemovies be "art house". But if Australians are involved in making them then they should at least avoid insulting the intelligence of Australian audiences." [5] Commenting in the Sydney Morning Herald Richard Glover says "it was as bad as everybody said it was" and notes that Jack Davis was revoiced in the final production. [6]

References

  1. ↑ Ed. Scott Murray, Australia on the Small Screen 1970-1995, Oxford Uni Press, 1996 p16
  2. ↑ "Deadly quest for Aussie gem", The Daily News, 4 May 1986
  3. ↑ Hooks, Barbara (6 March 1986), "A long-awaited entree is dished up to the US", The Age
  4. ↑ Butler, Jim (6 May 1986), "CBS action film a bullet-ridden bomb", Bryan-College Station Eagle
  5. ↑ Hooks, Barbara (2 June 1986), "'Lightning' not likely to strike even once", The Age
  6. ↑ Glover, Richard (4 June 1986), "Water, water everywhere — ain't it a scream?", The Sydney Morning Herald


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