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The third of five Australian-set features from Ealing Studios, Bitter Springs
was the first cinematic attempt to examine the contentious issue of Aboriginal
land rights and the dispossession of native Australians by white settlers.
Partly sponsored by several government departments as a means of promoting
current Aborigine assimilation programmes, the film generated much publicity
from the large numbers of Aborigines who were employed to portray members of the
Karagani tribe.
Nevertheless, the Aboriginal point of view is largely expressed through the
white, Scottish character Mac, who serves as the voice of liberal conscience in
opposition to the intransigence of the white settlers, personified in the film
by John and Wally King. Wally's contention that "just because a few blacks have
been scratching around here for a thousand years doesn't mean they can keep it"
encapsulates not only his family's colonialist stance, but the widespread
historical and continuing hostility held towards the Aboriginal population as a
whole.
However, the film's critical position and its realistic tenor are compromised
by two serious errors of judgement, rooted in politics and the box office: the
unconvincing, rushed denouement and the casting of Tommy Trinder as comic
relief.
Trinder was assigned to the production against the wishes of
director Ralph Smart, and it is easy to understand the latter's objections.
Trinder's constant barrage of wisecracks is not only tiresome but seriously
undermines both the film's serious intentions and its realistic integrity - more
Shepherd's Bush than Australian Bush, as one critic remarked of Trinder's
presence.
The original ending, as envisaged by Smart, is reputed to have featured a
massacre of the Aborigines by the settlers. Such an uncompromising ending would
have had greater historical veracity and, indeed, have been more in tune with
the overall tone of the film. Instead we are presented with a crude
assimilationist message, rendered via a clumsy dissolve that unconvincingly
effaces all of the conflict that has gone before, showing Aborigines in
'western' dress now happily working on the Kings' farm. Assimilation for the
Aborigines, as presented here, obviously means acquiescence to western ways and
accepting the loss of land to white farming.
One of Ealing's more neglected and underrated productions, Bitter Springs is,
despite the above caveats, a generally well performed and beautifully shot
(entirely on location by Australian cinematographer George Heath) adventure film
with a serious message.
John Oliver
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