Kangaroo (1952 film)
| Kangaroo | |
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| Directed by | Lewis Milestone |
| Produced by | Robert Bassler |
| Written by | Martin Berkeley |
| Screenplay by | Harry Kleiner |
| Starring |
Maureen O'Hara Peter Lawford |
| Music by | Sol Kaplan |
| Cinematography | Charles G. Clarke |
| Edited by | Nick DeMaggio |
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Release date
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Running time
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84 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ₤800,000 |
| Box office | $1.25 million (US rentals) |
Kangaroo is a 1952 American Technicolor film directed by Lewis Milestone. It is also known as The Australian Story (American subtitle). The first Technicolor movie filmed on-location in Australia. Strong winds on location forced Milestone to re-dub much of the exterior dialogue.
Kangaroo was remade in Africa as The Jackals in 1967.
An Australian "Western" set at some vague time perhaps a century ago. Richard Connor (Peter Lawford) is a desperate young man in Sydney, Australia, trying to find the money to return home. While staying at a boarding house, he is mistaken by the drunk Michael McGuire (Finlay Currie) for his long-lost son, Dennis, whom McGuire had abandoned to an orphanage as a child, a deed for which he now deeply blames himself. Later that night, Connor attempts to rob John Gamble (Richard Boone) outside a gambling house, but after he finds him equally broke, he is talked into assisting him in robbing the establishment, during which the owner is shot. Connor and Gamble make off with the loot, stopping at the boarding house to get Connor's gear, whereupon McGuire, still drunk, pursues his "son" down the street until he collapses. They find on him information on his extensive station (for which he was trying to secure loans in Sydney) and his boat ticket, and decide to pose as his business partners to get on the boat and away to hide out with him in the Outback.
The next day, the now sober McGuire does not remember anything, and is at first suspicious of them, until he finds he has the ₤500 they claimed to have paid him for cattle (planted on him from the stolen loot). Along the way (first by boat, then by horse) they subtly drop hints that Connor (now calling himself Dennis Connor) may be his lost son, without letting on that McGuire himself had talked about him, in this way hoping to gain possession of the station.
Arriving at the station, they are both smitten by his daughter Dell (Maureen O'Hara), but held in some suspicion by the local trooper Len (Chips Rafferty), who has been Dell's local beau. Gamble does his best to scotch a budding attraction between Dell and Connor, because it will spoil the plan to pass him off as her lost brother. Biding their time both to develop their plan and hide out from the law, they end up helping the station get back on its feet, rescuing stray cattle, heading off a stampede, and culminating in a daring repair of an out-of-control windmill during a windstorm. McGuire is finally convinced that Connor is his son, and seeing the romantic interest of his daughter in him, tells her his conclusion. Overhearing her despair at this news, Connor feels he must confess, and Gamble sees their plan fail on the brink of success because of the annoying conscience of his partner.
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Wikipedia