''Captain Thunderbolt'' is a 1953 Australian action film from director Cecil Holmes about the

bushranger Bushrangers were armed robbers and outlaws who resided in The bush#Australia, the Australian bush between the 1780s and the early 20th century. The original use of the term dates back to the early years of the British colonisation of Australia ...

Captain Thunderbolt Frederick Wordsworth Ward (c. 1835 – 25 May 1870), better known by the Style (manner of address)#Self-styled, self-styled pseudonym of Captain Thunderbolt, was an Australian bushranger renowned for escaping from Cockatoo Island, New South Wal ...

. It was one of the few all-Australian films of the 1950s.

Synopsis

Fred Ward is imprisoned for horse stealing. He escapes from Cockatoo Island and under the name of Captain Thunderbolt becomes a

in the New England region, working with his friend and fellow escapee Alan Blake. Blake has a romantic involvement with a "half-caste" (sic) girl Maggie that equally infringes the norms of the day. Thunderbolt is tracked by the vengeful Trooper Mannix. After gunfights with the bushranger at a dance, then at a rocky outcrop, Mannix discovers that he has killed Alan Blake instead. Mannix passes off Blake's body as Thunderbolt, concealing the bushranger's escape. The legend grows that Thunderbolt did not die.

Cast

* Grant Taylor as

Charles Tingwell Charles William Tingwell AM (3 January 1923 – 15 May 2009), known professionally as Bud Tingwell or Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, was an Australian actor. One of the veterans of Australian film, he acted in his first motion picture in 1946 and we ...

as Alan Blake *Rosemary Miller as Joan * Harp McGuire as Trooper Mannix * John Fegan as Sergeant Dalton * Jean Blue as Mrs Ward *

John Fernside John Fernside (died 27 October 1957, aged 65) was an Australian actor who worked extensively on stage and screen from the 1910s through to 1950s. He co-starred with Chips Rafferty in three Australian films of the 1940s; ''The Overlanders'' (1946) ...

as Colonel *Loretta Boutmy as Maggie * Ronald Whelan as Hogstone *Charles Tasman as Colonial Secretary * Harvey Adams as parliamentarian *Patricia Hill as Belle *John Brunskill as Judge

Production

The budget was provided entirely by theatrical entrepreneur Sir Benjamin Fuller. It was a return to leading man roles for Grant Taylor. Holmes scouted locations around Armidale in late January 1951. The movie was shot in early 1951 on location in

New England, New South Wales New England is a geographical region in the north of the state of New South Wales, Australia, about inland from the Tasman Sea. The area includes the Northern Tablelands (or New England Tablelands) and the North West Slopes regions. As of 2 ...

, and at the Royal National Park in Sydney, with studio work done in Supreme Sound System in North Sydney. The woolshed dance sequence was shot at a Pyrmont woolstore. One of Thunderbolt's robbery victims was played by Kathleen Drummond, daughter of the then-local MP David Drummond. Filming started near Armidale on 5 March for ten days then the unit moved to Uralla. Taylor was accompanied by his wife during filming. British censorship requirements meant that the real-life romantic relationship between Thunderbolt and his aboriginal girlfriend Mary, who helped him escape from Cockatoo Island, was not featured in the film when released in Britain. According to ''Filmink'' "Holmes was a bit of a lefty in real life, and he fashions the story so poor old Thunderbolt is a victim of the upper classes. Holmes was conservative enough, however, to remove Thunderbolt's aboriginal wife from the story entirely." Loretta Boutmy, a singer, plays the role in blackface. Captain Thunderbolt was allowed to live at the end of the film because the producers hoped to spin it off into a TV series. (This did not happen.) Crewsick Jenkinson said the idea to write it that way came from his research which revealed that Frederic Britten died for Thunderbolt.

Release

The film was meant to be released in August 1951. However it did not play in Melbourne or Sydney cinemas until late 1955. The ''Sydney Morning Herald'' called it "modest but enterprising" with "stagy dialogue scenes. The film sold well overseas, including to American television. 53-minute TV edition in 16mm format of the film is in possession of the Australian

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a national c ...

. The missing full version was located in Prague in 2024 and obtained by NFSA. The Archive has published the Trailer originating from a 35mm print.

References

External links

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''Captain Thunderbolt''
at

''Captain Thunderbolt''
at Oz Movies

Specific website for the search for this film. {{Captain Thunderbolt 1953 films Rediscovered Australian films Australian action films Bushranger films 1950s action films 1950s rediscovered films Australian black-and-white films 1950s English-language films Films scored by Sydney John Kay Captain Thunderbolt English-language action films