Source: Some information on this page may have been sourced as part of the 2023 Wikimedia Australia Partnership Projects grant, with the purpose of improving and expanding the use of Wikidata on our website. Wikidata is a free and open knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. Read more about this project here.
Although superficially comparable with cattle drive Westerns like Red River, the emphasis in this film is on the cooperative nature of the enterprise - a cattle drive from Northern Australia in 1942 to escape the Japanese - rather than on notions of individualism at the centre of the western ethos. Starring Chips Rafferty, The Overlanders is a documentary in spirit, recreating the hazards of an epic drive and carefully assembling the mannerisms, vocabulary and attitudes to characterize the Australian bushman. There was also a strong role for a woman - Daphne Campbell as Mary Parsons - carrying on the tradition of the bush heroine established in Australian films of the twenties and thirties. Based on an actual cattle drive of 1942 organised by the government of Northern Australia to remove supplies from the reach of the Japanese. Cast also includes John Nugent Hayward.
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at .
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
324055
Language
English
Audience classification
G
Subject categories
Agriculture, Business, Commerce & Industry → Ranchers
Agriculture, Business, Commerce & Industry → Stockmen
Animals & Wildlife → Cattle drives - Australia
Armed Forces, Military, War & Weapons → World War, 1939-1945 - Australia
Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Australians - Relations with Japanese
Feature films → Feature films - Australia
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Black and White
Holdings
16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)