Plot
After the end of World War I, Australian soldier Jocko Wilson (Charles Laughton) admires the spirit of a destitute Belgian orphan who fights a larger boy. He feeds the child, whom he names "Nipper", and the boy's younger sister Mary. When he receives orders to go home, he gets his friend Ginger Gaffney ( Clyde Cook) to smuggle the pair aboard their ship. Then, realizing he knows nothing about raising children, he proposes to his singer girlfriend Aggie Dawlins (Cast
*Charles Laughton as Jocko Wilson *Production
Development
The film was based on a story by Mark Kelly and Bogart Rogers which was originally bought by MGM in May 1942 as a vehicle for Wallace Beery. Eventually the movie was assigned to Charles Laughton. A young director had been meant to direct but Laughton had just worked with Robert Leonard on '' Stand By for Action'' and insisted he direct.Shooting
Lon Jones, an Australian journalist doing a lecture tour of the US, acted as technical adviser for life in Australia. Jones wrote an article on the making of the film where he quoted Laughton:This role scares me. I know how Australians regard their Anzacs, and I also know that the rest of the world looks upon them as the greatest fighting force of modern times. Frankly, I have never worried so much about a film role in all my career.... I am just a fat, ugly pig in real life, and nothing can change that rather deplorable fact. I am one of those unfortunate actors who have to depend solely on their dramatic ability to create a transition on the screen or stage. I only hope that Australians generally will accept me for my acting in this role and forget about my looks.Laughton said that one of his biggest problems was the fact that he had never actually come into contact with Anzacs, and that he had only known a few Australians intimately.
I have had no way of getting the 'feel' of the character except from the script. I know Australians have become a race apart, fiercely independent and intensely proud. But never having lived among them I have never had the chance of getting io know their characteristics and their mannerisms. I realise only too well that if I should fail in this role I will make enemies of millions of Australians, and that is something I do not look forward to.Laughton decided to use a version of his own accent rather than approximate an Australian one because "I know Australians are very sensitive about their accent, and I don't want to antagonise them by faking an accent that would sound like a London Cockney." A number of silent era film stars appeared in small roles in the movie, such as William Desmond, May McEvoy, Florence Turner, Lillian Rich, Barbara Bedford, and Helen Holmes. Major Sam Harris was technical adviser for the military sequences. Leonard wanted to build a replica of Sydney Stadium for the boxing sequences but the studio ruled that would be too expensive and also require the permission of the managers of the actual stadium. So the stock MGM stadium was used, which was modelled on
Reception
Critical
The film's depiction of Australia was criticised in the Australian press. The ''Adelaide Advertiser'' wrote that:Australians will find amusement to errors of detail, which apparently the Australian technical adviser in Melbourne, Lon Jones, overlooked. For instance. Sydney stadium is confused with New York's Madison Square Garden. Melbourne publishes a Sunday newspaper made up in American style, and Australians talk like Cockneys: but the film as a whole portrays Australians sympathetically to vast American audiences and also drives home the fact that the Commonwealth has actually suffered enemy violence.James Agate wrote that Laughton plays the bulldog, pugnacious, good-hearted Australian speaking throughout with an accent more reminiscent of South Lambeth (London) than New South "Wales. His strenuous and, no doubt sincere, effort to impersonate something which is the very antithesis of his true personality is painful to behold." He said that the film story was "one of the silliest ever invented even by the scribes of Hollywood." The ''Sydney Morning Herald'' wrote that:
While it would be ungracious not to acknowledge Hollywood's intention to congratulate Australia in "The Man From Down Under", the compliment becomes hidden in a comedy of errors errors in local colour, slang, accent, dress, and character. The film is so badly off the scent In most respects that it is impossible not to be amused by it, provided that one can survive the irritations caused by its inaccuracies. But there is a more serious aspect Perhaps the producérs made no effort to make this a film of types but audiences in other countries will no doubt be ready enough to accept these 'Australians" as authentic and charactersistic. Charles Laughton, uncomfortably wrestling with a variety of unfamiliar accents, represents an Australian as a gambler, a confidence trickstet, a hard drinker, and a fellow whose window-dressing of tough talk cannot conceal the fact that he is at heart a childlike and maudlin sentlmentalist. Some of these characteristics are common enough in Australia, but Laughton has carried them to laughable extremes. As no other film before it, "The Man From Down Under" cannot fail to shake Australian faith in Hollywood's ability to bring its local colour within the bounds of reasonable possibility. One becomes so preoccupied with the anachronisms and character errors of this film, that it becomes difficult to value its story objectively.
Box office
According to MGM records the film made $555,000 in North America and $515,000 overseas, making a loss of $246,000.Legacy
The movie led to discussion about why Australia did not have its own film industry.References
External links
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Man From Down Under, The 1943 films 1943 romantic drama films 1940s war drama films 1940s sports drama films American boxing films American romantic drama films American black-and-white films Films about orphans Films directed by Robert Z. Leonard Films set in Australia Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films World War II films made in wartime American war drama films American sports drama films 1940s English-language films English-language romantic drama films English-language sports drama films English-language war drama films Films scored by David L. Snell