Ballarat Film Society – Smiley

To conclude this year marking their 70-year existence, watch a 1956 Australian film classic about an imaginative young boy who lives in the fictional small town of Murrumbilla in the Australian outback.

Listen to an older generation of Australian accents; watch two-up games and immerse yourself in a 1950s country sensibility. Smiley has an alcoholic drover father and an overworked mother. He saves up for a new bike by working odd jobs and slowly raises the money for his dream. In doing so, he unknowingly helps a dodgy publican called Rankin to sell opium to the local Aboriginal people living nearby.

Smiley’s adventures are just beginning… Smiley, and the 1958 Smiley Gets A Gun were released in the UK and US and went onto become international successes when few Australian films were being made. On a bit of trivia, young Colin Petersen went on to become the Bee Gees drummer. Roadshow.

Australia, 1956, USA/Britain, 93 min.

Dir: Anthony Kimmins. Stars: Ralph Richardson, Colin Petersen, (Smiley), John McCallum, Chips Rafferty, Charles Tingwell.