Nevertheless, it was all utterly magical compared to Australian efforts. It was possible to compare the movie The Overlanders to, say, Red River, in that they both concerned long cattle drives across hostile terrain, but there the similarity ended. The Overlanders was a British film, but with Australian characters, and therein lay the biggest problem. The Australian accent seemed an impossibility for any actor—usually Aussie characters were avoided for that reason. The wonderful Chips Rafferty, who starred here, was one of the few who could do it without making everyone cringe, but he was a very particular type—an Aussie James Stewart perhaps. Most local actors were middle-class and voice-trained and their attempts to do the accent of their native land were the worse kind of parody. They were embarrassing, especially when compared to John Wayne’s laconic drawl.
    But it was inferior in all sorts of other ways too. Nobody carried guns, there were no hostile Indians nor gangs of outlaws to make the adventure exciting. And it looked more like a home movie, made by amateurs, totally lacking the gloss of American productions.
    In every way, to a boy, American culture made things British—and thereby things Australian—just plain drab and shoddy, chunky and clunky. Their soldiers had more dramatic uniforms, they rode in sleeker cars and planes and trains, they made superior movies and the whole idea of them offered more exhilarating possibilities for adventure. It was embarrassing to see the way we were being left further and further behind.