Sunstruck

One of.those films that makes you.suspect that life might be worth living.We need a lot more of them especially at times like this! Why did Maggie Fitzgibbon retire so early?

This is the last feature film of that much loved actor Harry Secombe.He did tour Australia and was extremely popular there.Hence this film.It is an adequate time filler.

Well-loved little film that has stood the test of time. Rare dramatic performance from ex-goon, the late Harry Secombe. Here he plays a Welsh schoolteacher who has long dreamed of a move to Australia, where minimal research has led him to believe that sun, surf and girls are on tap! On his arrival at hicksville, the one-horse town of Kookaburra Springs in the blazing outback and where he has been commissioned to run the local school there, reality and fantasy clash head on.

Best described as a fish-out-of-water comedy, the film plays it for laughs, pathos, romance and light drama. Absolutely nothing to offend anyone. Filmed in and around the Parkes area (THE DISH!!) the cast here is uniformly good and lends Secombe great support.

Scripted by Stan Mars, at no stage does the film lag. True it is a little dated, but what would you expect just on thirty years later? Neat music score from Brian West....oh yeah, plenty of sun too!!!

Being and Australian I can relate to this movie especially as I was educated at a Country School. The Hotel is the center of town and all business, talk and public discussion goes on there, especially back in the 1960's. And so it goes that all business about the town was conducted in the hotel and if you were a "wowser" (you didn't have a beer) you were on the outer. Stanly (the new teacher from england) soon learns about "having a beer", and is subsequently accepted into the community. I would like this movie and its message to be passed on to future generations so lets get into the 21st Century and bring it out on DVD. -U2SPATS

Rangy denim-wearing blonde female lead Maggie Fitzgibbon (who recently died aged 91) will be remembered by older Brits as Vivienne Cooper in the sixties TV series 'The Newcomers'.

Here the positions are reversed as it's 'Welsh pom' Harry Secombe who's the stranger in town in yet another film set Down Under that mentions the heat but neither the aborigines nor the enormous spiders.