John Ewart

Based on the true story of "Major" Taylor, this is the story of an early twentieth century black athlete who bucks the prejudice and discrimination to find fame on the international circuit as he becomes a champion cyclist. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

The made-for-cable film Which Way Home is the story of a Red Cross nurse trying to escape from war-torn Cambodia in the late '70s with a group of orphans. An Australian smuggler assists her in her valiant attempt to save the children and leave Asia. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Hec Harris (Robin Ramsay) is a widowed tax-office clerk who wants to buy a computer to help devise an easy tax-form process in this comedy. He applies for a loan but is denied because he always pays in cash and has no credit on record. He borrows the money from the bank and immediately returns it, along with the interest, and gets a credit card. Hec soon runs up a bill of over $10,000 and pays it off by obtaining more credit cards. He soon is hopelessly swimming in debt, he loses his job, and his daughter Jo (Marion Chirgwin) is placed in a foster home. Although the feature is a comedy, there are serious moments in this story about a man living beyond his means. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The frontier of the title is Australia, the locale for this sprawling four-hour TV movie. Linda Evans stars as an American divorcee who marries an Australian cattleman (Tony Bonner). He dies in a plane crash, leaving Evans and her two teenaged stepchildren stranded on a drought- and debt-ridden ranch. She finds herself smack-dab in the middle of a feud between a covetous land baron (Jason Robards) and his idealistic son (Jack Thompson). With problems of her own, Evans refuses to take sides...until she falls in love with the son. The Last Frontier was filmed on location in Australia's Northern Territory and Barossa Valley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Before he directed the cult classic Highlander (1986), music video creator Russell Mulcahy adapted this stylish, tongue-in-cheek horror film from the novel by Peter Brennan. Gregory Harrison stars as Carl Winters, a grief-stricken American husband who has come to a remote corner of Australia to seek answers in the death of his wife, a TV journalist who was investigating a story on kangaroo poaching. Carl meets Jake Cullen (Bill Kerr), a man obsessed with hunting down what he says is an enormous razorback boar that consumed his grandson. Although he was acquitted, most of the locals believe that Jake murdered the boy himself and invented the crazy story about a giant pig. Jake tells Carl that he believes the razorback is also responsible for his wife's death. At first skeptical, Carl becomes a believer when he encounters the beast. He and Jake track it to a dog food processing plant, where the owners are illegally butchering kangaroos for industrial use. The factory operators are also feeding the dog food to the gigantic razorback, increasing its size and carnivorous appetite. Joined by farmer Sarah Cameron (Arkie Whiteley), Carl and Jake set out to kill the powerful mutant. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

An entertaining and exciting adventure story for any age, Bush Christmas, set in the Australian outback, has three tense situations developing along parallel lines: Ben (Peter Sumner) and Kate Thompson (Vineta O'Malley) have to pay off the mortgage on their homestead by January 1st or they lose everything; manager Bill (John Ewart) and lead singer Sly (John Howard) of a struggling outback band find themselves desperately broke and decide to "borrow" the Thompson's prize racehorse to run a few races and recoup their loses; and finally, the two Thompson children, Helen (Nicole Kidman at 15) and John (Mark Spain) along with a British cousin (James Wingrove) and a ranch hand Manalpuy (Manalpuy) decide to chase after the horse rustlers and retrieve the family's beloved stallion. Most of the film shows the two inept horse thieves trying to make their comic way across an inhospitable terrain, and the children braving unexpected dangers, as when they fall into an abandoned mine shaft that starts to fill up with water. When these various adventures are resolved, the Thompson family is faced with a final, fateful chance to pay off their mortgage by entering their recaptured racehorse in a New Year's Day cross-country race. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A bunch of kids fall in love with a moth-balled ferry that is marked for the junk yard. They organize a fix-up committee that sets out to repair the old boat. With the ship's original captain, they make it sea-worthy and take it out for a spin. Of course the encrusted city officials are outraged and call the local police in to capture the vessel-fixing kids who try to elude the cops in a action-packed boat chase. ~ All Movie Guide

Donald Crombie directed this frothy yarn taking place in Sydney, Australia during the 1920s. Liddy Clark stars as Kitty, an innocent young bride who becomes the owner of the raucous Top Hat nightclub with the assistance of a crooked cop. The story revolves around waterfront crime queens Kitty and Big Lil Delaney, and their attendant pimps, lovers, and "bagmen" (corrupt cops who are middlemen between the police and the crooks). The two adversaries engage in spirited dock side brawls, hair-pulling fights, street shoot-outs, and frenetic car chases. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this sci-fi film a sophisticated computer develops its own mind and begins asking difficult moral questions of its inventor and his wife. The inventor begins spending many hours debating with his creation and the wife gets jealous. The computer's own morality is questioned after it witnesses a murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Run, Rebecca, Run stars Australian child actress Simone Buchanan, best known for her leading role in that country's Rainbow Island TV and movie series. Buchanan plays a young camera fanatic who is marooned on a desert island. Here she is threatened by a refugee from South America (Henri Szeps) who isn't keen on having his whereabouts known. Hostility melts into friendship before the rescue boats arrive. Run Rebecca Run had its American premiere on cable television in 1983; it was rebroadcast on PBS' Wonderworks in January of 1985. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although it makes her father unhappy, Jenny does not want a certain horse sold to the owners of a farm. She sets out to save her favorite animal. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The "Caddie" in this Australian thriller is not of the golfing variety, but is instead the nicknamed bestowed upon the heroine. Helen Morse plays a barmaid in 1930s Sydney whose husband walks out on her. Left with two kids to raise by herself, Helen struggles to make ends meet without losing her self-respect. Her favorite customer is Takis Emmanuel, who likens Helen to an expensive Cadillac (or "Caddie"). Romance blossoms between the two lost souls. Also appearing in Caddie is ubiquitous Aussie character actor Jack Thompson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Ken Hamman's breakthrough historical drama was the first Australian film of the 1970s to gain international acclaim, paving the way for the Australian New Wave and the success of movies such as The Last Wave and Breaker Morant. Sunday Too Far Away is a story about the struggles of itinerant sheep shearers in the Outback in the 1950s. Jack Thompson won an Australian Best Actor prize for his role as Foley, a hard-drinking, hard-working shearer who is the best at his profession. When local landowners try to drive away the sheep herders, Foley leads a strike to establish their right to exist and live off the land. The dispute turns violent as the landowners retaliate, and Foley struggles to maintain his supremacy. Many scenes were shot in the same shearing barn used in the 1960 British-Australian hit The Sundowners, which was about an Irish sheepherder who emigrates to Australia. The title comes from a traditional song of complaint sung by sheep shearers' wives. The film became a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide