I give King of the Coral Sea a ten score because the love and passion by all concerned in the making of this little gem shows through on the screen. 25,000 pounds was a minuscule budget for a film even by 1953 standards, certainly Hollywood would spend that on the trailer alone. Chips Rafferty produced this film, and put nearly all of his own money into it, in fact most of what he earned he invested back into the Australian film industry in the days when no one else was much interested in it, he never became a rich man, but he did become an Australian icon of the screen, Hedda Hopper once called him, Australia's Gary Cooper, the laconic 6'5" Chips was always a commanding presence on screen. King of The Coral Sea may not have the flashy Hollywood production values of a huge budget, but it does have an endearing charm that has only increased as time goes by. Noted also as the screen debut of 23 year old Rod Taylor, ironically playing a phony yank, that he would later parlay into a big Hollywood career, Charles Tingwell was also offered a Hollywood contract that he turned down in favour of going to England where he forged a successful career, returning to Australia for good in the 1970's, he once proudly showed me a ledger listing the profits that King of the Coral Sea made, a film everybody involved with was justly proud, beautifully filmed on Queensland's Thursday Island, and underwater scenes at Green Island off the coast of Cairns. A nice crisp print of this film on DVD is available from Australia's National Film and Sound Archive shop online at http://shop.nfsa.gov.au/
