Gesetz der Peitsche

You look at this cast, Peter Lawford, Maureen O'Hara, Chips Rafferty, Richard Boone and Finlay Currie, and you'd think this would be a winner. Well, not quite. The story line which draws on the fortunes of an Irish immigrant (Currie) and his daughter (O'Hara)to rural Australia just kind of wears out. Boone, of course, is at his hammy best as the bad guy and Lawford, in his pre-Ratpack days, provides the romantic interest but the story just seems to run out of steam, even with the efforts of veteran Aussie character actor, Chips Rafferty. If it shows up one night on the late show, you might want to watch it but I doubt if you'll remember much of it afterwards.

Good old fashion action drama set in the outback of Australia and actually filmed there. No cgi in this good adventure. Excellent cast of the day, great action, good music score, cinematography very good and one of the best dire history of its time. Cattle stampede, bushfires and kangaroos, what more can you want from a story. See it for what it is and don't judge it on things some reviewers obviously know nothing about. Now available mon PRIME.

This is a 1952 epic Aussie Western adventure in dazzling and glamorous Technicolor . During early 20th century Australia a young man who goes bankrupt is attempting to find cash to afford him to go back home and he'll stop at nothing to get it . The young called Richard Connor (Peter Lawford) checks into a Sydney boarding house where he's mistaken for an alcoholic rancher's long-lost son . The same night Richard attempts to steal a stranger , John Gamble (Richard Boone) , but when he finds out that this person too is broke , they befriend , join forces and decide together to steal a local gambling house . Just by chance , they meet the drunk rancher (Finlay Currie) again. The rancher insists the young Richard is his lost son . When Richard and his robber colleague discover that , they decide to carry out a set-up about the long-lost son and claim the eventual inheritance . However , the rancher's daughter , Dell (Maureen O'Hara) , becomes an unforeseen obstacle to their twisted schemes . Then the two pals become rivals for the affection of the rancher's gorgeous daughter . A roaring chip on their shoulder---A rousing challenge on their lips! . There's a new word for Excitement ...There's a new name for Adventure . They're real people , fun people , fervent people. We see the wild aborigines of Australia dance the blood-tingling corroboree . They have a tremendous urge to keep breathing. Their rousing story comes roaring across six thousand miles of excitement...You are part of its blazing excitement...its elemental drama...its rousing laughter, all of which made 'Kangaroo' the year's record-shattering tops in entertainment ! Dedicated to the Pioneers who made Australia Great!. Adventure...As far as the eye can see! .The Cry of Mighty Adventure! . The continent time Tribute to greatness...to-night screen history is made ...as "Kangaroo," the first feature film in Technicolor produced by Hollywood in Australia, makes its debut before distinguished audiences at gala charity previews in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Port Augusta (S. A.) ...memorable occasions to mark the beginning of a new phase of this great enterprise ...Soon all Australia will be seeing the motion picture that has excited world-wide interest...Two years to make but worth waiting for . A motion picture of Australia - for Australia - expertly made as only Hollywood knows how ! Australia as seen through the eyes of Lewis Milestone who gave you impressive films . Thrill to a new kind of outdoor adventure !

This is a nice movie that blends a renowned cast , the rugged country and the joyous adventure classic . A mighty drama of Australian adventure set in turn-of-the-century , where two criminals ingratiate and join themselves to execute a robbing and subsequently proceeding a complex swindle , but then things go wrong . An exciting , unusual and consistently dramatic action-adventure set in the Australian Outback , being first and only Technicolor production made in Australia and in which excitement stampedes the screen . As the cameras record the sight and sound of aborigines in the exciting dance of the corroboree and they have caught the thunder of thirst-crazed herds, the scream of the boomerang, and a bull-whip fight never before seen on the screen ; in addition we see Kangaroos , giant lizards , wombats, dingos, bull ants , extinct everywhere else for 60,000,000 years . Here stands out the moving and rousing musical score by the classic composer Alfred Newman and being well cinematographed in blazing and brilliant Technicolor by Charles G. Clarke . Interpretations are uniformly acceptable, all of them contributing fortright performances , stars the red hair Mauren O'Hara as the stubborn young confronted with all manner of prejudice and temptation to three suitors : Peter Lawford , Richard Boone and Chip Rafferty . As Peter Lawford as a young broke man who's wishing to take money at whatever cost to allow him to return home, though eventually falling in love . While Richard Boone's Gamble giving a magnificent study of cynical opportunism . Likewise the veteran Finlay Currie as the drunk rancher who has an extensive property.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Lewis Milestone . This one was a vintage filmmaker who shot a lot of films in all kinds of genres with penchant for warlike genre , getting some masterpieces . As Lewis Milestone directed the following ones : " Mutiny on the Bounty" , "Oceans' 11", "Pork Chop Hill" , "Halls of Moctezuma" , "Arch of Triumph" , "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" , "Of Mice and Men" , "The General died at Dawn", "The Front Page" , "All Quiet on the The Western Front" , "The Garden of Eden" . Rating : 6.5/10 . Well worth watching . Essential and indispensable seeing for Maureen O'Hara fans.

"Kangaroo" is a decent film once you get past the lame title. There's hardly a kangaroo to be seen in the movie, but it seems the producers of this big-budget film shot on location in Australia wanted something to say "exotic" right away, and why take a chance misspelling "koala bear"?

Not otherwise much different from the types of films they called Westerns and made by the score in Hollywood in the 1950s, "Kangaroo" features Peter Lawford and Richard Boone playing a pair of outlaws, on the run after killing a no-good gambling-hall owner. They find themselves able to make their escape by pretending to have bought a herd of cattle from an old rancher with a drinking problem (Finlay Currie). And if the rancher happens to think one of them is his long-lost son, what's the harm in indulging him for some extra security?

Having low expectations of both Boone and especially Lawford going in, I was pleasantly surprised at how well the two anchored the proceedings as gritty, amoral partners of circumstance. Boone has a fun time playing a devil-may-care type with a deep vocabulary who makes his philosophy clear early on: "I never feel any regrets. I died years ago...To live, one must first die."

The two even manage to launder their bloody booty by giving it to the rancher and pretending its their payment to him in exchange for cattle. What if the cattle die, from a long-standing drought now gripping the whole region? Well, it's better than a noose for this pair, and as a game of chance, it's no worse a bet than any other either man has taken on in recent months.

Lawford's Richard Connor is the conscience of the pair, a solid backboard for the proceedings as Boone gnashes on the hammy script for all its worth. He has a hard time reconciling himself to pretending to be the rancher's long-lost son, especially after he gets a load of the rancher's other sibling Dell (Maureen O'Hara).

O'Hara is only okay here, a far cry from the light of so many John Ford movies shot around the same time. Director Lewis Milestone is himself no slouch, he shot "All Quiet On The Western Front" and gets value both from the location shoots and isolated moments like when a few raindrops plink down on dusty ground.

"Kangaroo" offers a ripping set-up, and in sequences like a long cattle drive where parched cows attract crows while the cattle drivers wait in vain for rain, you feel the desperation of the story and its main characters right in your guts. Perhaps I was the victim of a poorly-edited cut, but my 85-minute version of the movie feels otherwise gruesomely truncated, especially when a sudden whipfight breaks out in the last five minutes and is resolved by an off-camera gunshot. Not a way to end a movie!

Still, there's more to like than not to like here, even if the plot feels at times lamely stretched to take in such vintage Australian elements as aborigines and boomerangs. Everyone wears a Crocodile Dundee hat, too. Yet there's a charm to all this, too, in Hollywood's first movie shot in Australia playing like a Randolph Scott western with a bigger budget and more ambitious cinematography.

The biggest problem is the truncated sense of time; one can imagine the film going a little longer in certain directions, fleshing out story lines that seem to wither here. Maybe it did, and I was only the victim of a cheap DVD transfer. I liked "Kangaroo" enough to enjoy the better parts and not sweat the weaker stuff so much. Not great, as I said, but decent entertainment.

Peter Lawford and Richard Boone are two criminals who befriend on old drunk (Finley Currie) who turns out to be the rancher father of Maureen O'Hara who's been looking for him for two weeks. All this takes place, and entirely filmed, in the wonderful outback of Australia where you see the Aborigines dance for rain, kangaroos hopping, and flocks of birds flying around. Plenty of exciting scenes of stampede herding of steer and windmill stopping and fights between Lawford and Boone. One part I wasn't too crazy about was one when O'Hara and Lawford were about to kiss in the middle scene since Peter was supposedly passing himself off as the long-lost son of her father! Good thing it didn't happen then! Pretty good direction from old pro Lewis Milestone. Worth a look for old-time movie buffs.