Plot

In Australia's Outback during the early twentieth century, the impoverished Carmody family lives a nomadic life out of their wagon, but the mom and son want to settle, while the dad is against it.

In the Australian Outback, the Carmody family, Paddy (Robert Mitchum), Ida (Deborah Kerr), and their teenage son Sean (Michael Anderson, Jr.), are sheep drovers, always on the move. Ida and Sean want to settle down and buy a farm. Paddy wants to keep moving. A sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a child, drinking, gambling, and a race horse will all have a part in the final decision.—Jeanne Armintrout <jeannee@uwyo.edu>

The Carmodys, husband and wife Paddy (Robert Mitchum) and Ida (Deborah Kerr), and their young teen-aged son Sean (Michael Anderson, Jr.), are a migrant family in 1920's Australia. Paddy works primarily as a sheep drover. Paddy loves their lifestyle, figuring that they are not dependent on the fortunes of one piece of land or on the strict daily timetable and routine of farm life. However, Ida and Sean both dream of having their own farm so that they can have a more stable and permanent home life. Ida also does not like the feeling that people they meet feel sorry for them. But on their latest six-week job droving sheep from Bulinga to Cawndilla, Ida at least gets Paddy to agree to think about settling down. Paddy's agreement is more to get her off the topic than a real want to do it. Rather than leave Cawndilla immediately for Queensland, as was Paddy's original plan, Ida manages to get them all jobs, Paddy as a sheep shearer, Ida as the farmhand cook, Sean as a tar boy, and their new older British companion Rupert Venneker (Sir Peter Ustinov) as a wool roller, at Halstead farm, despite Paddy doing whatever he could not to make it happen. Although he had no ties to the place before arriving, Rupert has his own reasons now for wanting to stay in Cawndilla. The longer Paddy, Ida, and Sean stay in Cawndilla, the more evident their differences become. Ida and Sean know that by the end of the season they will have enough money for a down payment for the farm they have their eye on in Bulinga. But Paddy hates his job the longer he does it, and if he makes up his mind to leave, he will do so with or without the rest of his family. A race horse named the Sundowner may factor into the Carmody's ultimate decision.—Huggo