GEM was showing this early Saturday morning, and I just finished AKA Known as "Four Desperate Men" in the States, but as "The Siege of Pinchgut" here in Australia, this was shown on local TV yesterday. It was rather unusual seeing Sydney in 1959, with double decker buses, trams, and police vans with "POLICE E&R FORCE" on the side of them, and the lowish skyline of Northern Sydney.
The film follows the pattern of the period which would have one or two overseas stars to help sell the film elsewhere. This time it's Aldo Ray and Carlo Giustini. It also has a solid performance by Gerry Duggan (whom I saw in a Skippy repeat last week) and Alan Tilvern as the hard-headed Superintendent Hanna. Like many films of the time, accents are either well known dialects (like Irish), "educated" (like Hanna's) or "larrikin" like the main characters brother Joey.
Very much a drama of who will and won't survive, including a good portion of Sydney, with a live naval gun trained on a boat full of explosives! There's a number of sly digs on Australian society in the film, like a two-up game running in the middle of an evacuation. I also liked the reference to "the old tram depot, about to be demolished for our new Opera House" - little did they know where that'd lead! Good stuff and a look at the past.
The film follows the pattern of the period which would have one or two overseas stars to help sell the film elsewhere. This time it's Aldo Ray and Carlo Giustini. It also has a solid performance by Gerry Duggan (whom I saw in a Skippy repeat last week) and Alan Tilvern as the hard-headed Superintendent Hanna. Like many films of the time, accents are either well known dialects (like Irish), "educated" (like Hanna's) or "larrikin" like the main characters brother Joey.
Very much a drama of who will and won't survive, including a good portion of Sydney, with a live naval gun trained on a boat full of explosives! There's a number of sly digs on Australian society in the film, like a two-up game running in the middle of an evacuation. I also liked the reference to "the old tram depot, about to be demolished for our new Opera House" - little did they know where that'd lead! Good stuff and a look at the past.