Bush Christmas (1947)

Bush Christmas (1947) is a window on a world of the past that seems almost fanciful, to our modern perspective, as to be dreamlike, but it existed. This era, this world, was more hardscrabble than many of us might understand, and yet there was a simplicity that brought joy and freedom in ways we might also find difficult to imagine.

This all sounds rather airy, but I think this is the impression one leaves with at the end of the movie.  In its way, it may not leave us (at least in America) with Christmas nostalgia, but it does evoke nostalgia for the imagination and adventure of childhood.

The movie was an Australian-British production, filmed by director Ralph Smart with the intention of making a children’s movie for the British market, specifically for what were “cinema clubs” – Saturday matinees.  Showing British kids stories of the then Empire countries in this post-World War II era was an important and entertaining way to bolster ties between them. 

John McCallum, a popular Australian actor who appeared in numerous British movies, narrates the movie.  Chips Rafferty, a then up-and-coming Australian movie star is given top billing and plays one of the bad guys.  Most of the cast featured adults with minor film or stage experience in Australia, and they are secondary to the children in the movie, who get most of the screen time and most of the rather scant dialogue.  

Some of the kids had some radio experience, and Helen Grieve, who plays Helen, had done a previous film with Chips Rafferty.  She is the oldest child and more polished than the others, but even the inexperience of the other kids and the few lines they say to each other are astonishingly irrelevant to the success of the movie.  From McCallum’s introduction to the film that sets us in the Australian Outback, telling us of an event that happened last year, we are lulled into a comfortable storytime. 

We are reminded at the outset by the narrator that in Australia, Christmas occurs during summertime.  The kids in the story are just being let out of school for the Christmas holidays, and they joyously run from the little Outback schoolhouse to—their horses. Already, we’re astonished at how different their world may be to ours.

The children are played by Helen Grieve, the oldest; Nick Yardley and Morris Unicomb as her younger brothers; and Michael Yardley as a British boy who is in Australia as one of the kids evacuated from Great Britain during the Blitz.  The narrator tells us that he is home in England by now (it being 1947). 

The other member of their group is an Aboriginal child named Neza, played by Neza Saunders, who was discovered at a mission station.  He, like the other kids, is given little to say but is quite natural and unaffected.  The native people are always referred to as The Blacks in the movie, and though he is clearly one of the gang, riding away from the school on his horse (though we don’t know if he actually attends with them), we see that the other kids still regard him as a “type” rather than a person.  When he won’t join them on a ride to a certain place, saying it is a bad place, they scoff at his superstition. When they smear soot on their faces to pretend they are commandos, they laugh when he copies them because his skin is already dark.  

Though Neza, through his knowledge of bushcraft, actually keeps them alive when they are alone in the Outback, they are not above seeing him as clownish. Likewise, Old Jack, played by Clyde Combo, is also played by an Aboriginal actor and he helps to track the kids when they are missing. He is shown as a knowledgeable stockman employed by the kids’ father, and without him, they might still be missing.

For the most part, however, Neza is given due attention by the director as an authentic and interesting part of life in Australia to British kids who will never travel there.

The kids, on a detour on their way home, come across two men played by Chips Rafferty and John Fernside, who discuss horses with them.  They want to buy horses, and the kids supply information on who in the valley has the best horses to sell.  These men are actually horse thieves scouting the area.  They give two bob (which is two shillings) each to the kids to not tell anyone they were there, giving the excuse that they want to buy the horses before rival horse traders can get to them.  This all seems innocent enough to the kids, so they take the money and promise not to tell.  When Helen gets uncomfortable with this, they go back to return the money, but the men are gone.

When the kids return home to the ranch, or “station” as they are called in Australia, they tell their father that they are late because of a Christmas party at school. 

They are preparing for Christmas at home, too.  All of them look forward to a trip to “the city” where they will buy presents for each other. Their father is played by Pat Penny and their mother is played by Thelma Grigg.

When horses are stolen in the valley that evening, including a valuable mare and foal from their father, the kids put two-and-two together and realize they allowed the bad guys to do this.  They confess, dad is angry, and the kids feel that they must be responsible and make it right.

So they tell their parents they’re going camping for a couple days at a nearby watering hole, which evidently is nothing to worry about because their parents don’t.  The kids’ real plan, however, is to trail the bad guys, with Neza’s expert help, and bring back the stolen horses.

What follows is an adventure that for all its daring, doesn’t really seem improbable, given the remote location and the obvious independence of the children, most of whom appear to be under 12 years old.

They track the bad guys, now joined by a third ruffian played by Stan Tolhurst. One of the men, Fernside, is a bit of a lazy oaf, but all three appear to be quite dangerous, so this is no tale of smart kids besting a bunch of adult buffoons.  There is real danger present, both from the rustlers and from the unforgiving environment.  At one point, the kids run out of provisions and Neza shows them how to live off the land by eating cooked snake and live grubs.  They’re willing to try the snake, but the grubs don’t go over as well. 

It reminds me of a painting I bought when I was in the Outback many years ago (which I mentioned in this previous post on A Town Like Alice (1956). The painting on fabric, called “Bush Tucker” shown here, depicts snake, frog, and grub cuisine by Aboriginal artist Julie Nabangardi Shedden. Tucker is Australian slang for food.

A testament to the kids’ independence is the reaction of their parents when, after some days, the kids don’t return from their camping trip.  Mother decorates a spindly tabletop scrub pine, and in an unworried tone, “Time the children were home.” 

Father responds, “Probably forgot what day it is.”

Though the kids are resourceful when they catch up to the bad guys—stealing their boots and food when they sleep, and pushing small boulders down a hilly trail to keep from being caught when the bad guys are after them—there is real suspense, particularly in a few harrowing moments when young Michael loses his glasses and stumbles too close to a cliff.

There is a happy ending, where horses have been returned and the local constable, finding the bad guys through trailing the kids, proclaims, “These kids have proved themselves to be good citizens.”  Certainly, a compliment not often heard today, nor aspired to, but quaint to hear.

Their Christmas lunch around the table, the family, and Neza, all wearing the traditional paper crowns from their Christmas crackers, enjoy their mince pies and Christmas pudding, traditional English fare that migrated here. 

Next week, we take the traditional English Christmas back to Blighty with The Holly and the Ivy (1952), and a rather untraditional Christmas story.

Bush Christmas is here on YouTube.

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GIFTS FOR THE CLASSIC FILM FAN!!!!!!!

Christmas in Classic Films provides a roster of old movies with scenes to conjure Christmas of days gone by.  Makes a nice gift, if you know an old movie buff, or if you just like to give presents to yourself.  

The paperback is available at Amazon, but also here at Barnes & Noble.

The hardcover, so far, is available only at Amazon.

Here are a few other classic movie books I've written for your gift-giving pleasure:

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. - for sale in paperback and hardcover at Amazon,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Ingram,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Barnes & Noble.

And in paperback here at Walmart.

Hollywood Fights Fascism -  here in paperback at Amazon.

Movies in Our Time - here in paperback at Amazon.

And all of these books are available as well at my page on Bookshop.org, which helps support independent bookstores.