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Palgrave Macmillan

Australian Westerns in the Fifties

Kangaroo, Hopalong Cassidy on Tour, and Whiplash

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  • © 2022

Overview

Authors:
  1. Derham Groves

    1. Faculty of Architecture, Bldg & Planning, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

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  • Looks at three significant but “forgotten” examples of the Australian Western genre
  • Takes a phenomenological, anecdotal approach to the subject
  • Emphasizes the role of place in Australian Westerns

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Table of contents (3 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
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  2. Kangaroo: The Australian Story

    • Derham Groves
    Pages 1-48

  3. Hopalong Cassidy on Tour

    • Derham Groves
    Pages 49-90

  4. Whiplash

    • Derham Groves
    Pages 91-138

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 139-149
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Keywords

About this book

Australian Western in the Fifties: Kangaroo, Hopalong Cassidy on Tour, and Whiplash looks at Australian Westerns from three points of view—film, personal appearance, and television at the beginning, middle, and end of the 1950s, the American Western’s golden age. It looks at three significant but “forgotten” cases: (1) Kangaroo: The Australian Story, the first Technicolor film made in Australia, produced by the Hollywood movie studio 20th Century Fox, directed by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Lewis Milestone, starring Maureen O’Hara, Peter Lawford, and Richard Boone. (2) The successful goodwill tour of Australia by the Hollywood actor William Boyd who played the film, radio, and television cowboy Hopalong Cassidy. (3) The British-American produced black-and-white TV series Whiplash, made in Australia and starring the Hollywood actor Peter Graves. The American filmmakers’ ignorance of Australia meant they learned the hard waythere was more to Australian Westerns than simply replacing the prairie with the bush, bison with kangaroos, and Native Americans with Aboriginals. Indeed, the depiction of place and the presentation of Aboriginal culture are two of the most intriguing aspects of Australian Westerns. In retelling the filmmakers’ stories, a unique picture of the Australian film and television industry and everyday life during the 1950s is revealed.  


Reviews

"As Derham Groves shows us in this delightful book, the 1950s—the decade known as a Golden Age of Hollywood Westerns in the USA—witnessed a flourishing of Westerns across the Dateline and Down Under from Hollywood. On the big screen (in Kangaroo), small screen (in Whiplash), and in person (in Hopalong Cassidy on Tour), Australia was the setting for a fictional West parallel to, and yet distinct from, the North American variety. Drawing on the continent’s bush landscape, its Indigenous peoples, and its history of settler colonialism, the “Meat Pie Western” appears here as central to a genre that has in fact been global since its very beginnings." (Josh Garrett-Davis, Curator at the Autry Museum of the American West)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Architecture, Bldg & Planning, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Derham Groves

About the author

Derham Groves is a Senior Fellow in Architecture at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He has written extensively on popular architecture and design, including about Anna May Wong, Arthur Purnell, Disney, feng-shui, letterboxes, Sherlock Holmes, television, and The Monkees.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Australian Westerns in the Fifties

  • Book Subtitle: Kangaroo, Hopalong Cassidy on Tour, and Whiplash

  • Authors: Derham Groves

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12883-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-12882-0Published: 29 October 2022

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-12885-1Published: 29 October 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-12883-7Published: 28 October 2022

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVIII, 149

  • Number of Illustrations: 38 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Australasian Cinema and TV, Genre

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