South West Pacific is a 1943 propaganda short Australian film directed by Ken G. Hall which focuses on Australia as the main Allied base in the South West Pacific area. Actors depict a cross section of Australians involved in the war effort.
Plot
A series of everyday people talk about their contributions to the war effort. A motor mechanic speaks about how he was working happily in 1939, not thinking much of the crisis in Europe; he subsequently began making aircraft and enlisted in the Volunteer Defence Force.
The factory manager talks about how Australia has increased its industrial capacity and the high rates of tax necessary to pay for it. In peace time he was an engineer in charge of a cosmetics factory. He talks in particular about the munitions and weapons made in Australia.
Old Man Stewart, the farmer, talks about how the war interrupted his life and the importance of getting on with the job of growing food. He speaks about the female land army.
A man on a tractor, a former milkman, talks about his job building roads and aerodromes. His daughter Gwennie is working making munitions. She used to work in a beauty parlour and now pours TNT into munitions. She talks about the varied things women do in the war.
Her boyfriend Bill is in the navy. He talks about the Australia navy, the battles they lost, including the Sydney, Perth and Canberra.
Bill and Gwennie are at a cafe when they meet a merchant seaman who has survived several attacks and sinkings. He talks about the role of the merchant navy in transporting troops, munitions and food.
An RAAF pilot banters with an RAF pilot in New Guinea. They go off on a mission. An RAF mechanic and RAAF mechanic banter and worry about their pilots. Then with an American mechanic "Brooklyn" they remember the bombing of Darwin and talk about how the Allies will defeat Japan.
In the jungle, an Australian and American soldier get cut off together. The Australian soldier reminisces about service in Tobruk, Greek, Greece and the Malayan campaign. He praises his English, Indian and New Zealand allies. The Australian has a brother taken POW in Malaya, the American a brother in Bataan. They vow to get revenge on the Japanese.
The narrator then talks about Peter Lalor, the Eureka Rebellion and the vow taken at the Eureka Stockade.
Cast
Alec Kellaway as the Mechanic (the former motor mechanic) John Nugent-Hayward as Harry, the Factory Manager Bert Bailey as Old Man Stewart, the Farmer Bill Perryman as the Road Builder Muriel Steinbeck as Gwennie, the Munition Worker Walter Pym as Bill, the Sailor George Randall as the Merchant Seaman Peter Finch as the RAAF pilot Ralph Smart as the RAF pilot Joe Valli as the RAF mechanic Chips Rafferty as the RAAF mechanic Wayne Froman as USAC mechanic Grant Taylor as AIF soldier Ron Randell as US soldier
Production
Various actors were granted leave from the armed services to appear in the movie, including Gunner Peter Finch, Sgt. Ron Taylor, LAC Chips Rafferty, PO Ralph Smart, Joe Valli, Ron Randell and Sergeant-Major Walter Pym and Squadron Leader George Randall.
Jungle scenes were reconstructed in Cinesound's studio under the supervision of Damien Parer. The US Army lent fighting equipment for battle scenes. To add realism to sequences live ammunition was used.
Ken Hall later said he wanted to use professional actors rather than real workers and farmers "to give the film a professional finish, and that the majority of them were real-life war workers, either in the services, or in essential industry."
Prime Minister John Curtin wrote a special foreword for the film which stated that the film: Was made to give the people of Great Britain, America, Soviet Russia, and the United Nations some accurate idea of Australia at war. The Commonwealth Government has released this film for exhibition throughout Australia, in the feeling that every citizen will take pride in a record of national achievement. You are about to see a motion picture which you helped to make as a member of thee fighting forces, as a worker on the home front, as a tacpayer, as a buyer of war bonds.
Release
The film had its first public screening in Hobart on 12 May when Senator Bill Ashley, the then-Minister for Information, showed it after giving a talk.
The film premiered to commercial audiences in Sydney at the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney in June 1943. It had been passed without cuts by the government censor, but the word "bloody", which was spoken twice in the jungle scenes, was removed by a cleric who ran the Lyceum.