A Yank in Australia

Two journalists in New York, American Headlines Haggerty (Al Thomas) and Englishman

Clarence Worthington (Hartney Arthur) are sent to cover the war in the South Pacific. They get marooned on the Australian coast along with two rival female reporters after a Japanese submarine sinks their boat. They are rescued by a girl who lives on the island with her father, Horace. Together they uncover and stop a plot by the Japanese to invade Australia.

• Al Thomas as Headlines Haggerty
• Hartney Arthur as Clarence Worthington
• Kitty Bluett as Clara Matthews
• Jane Conolly as Dolly
• Graham Wicker as Horace
• Alfred J. Goulding as a Japanese spy
• Joy Nichols
• Frank Bradley
• Marie La Varre

The film was made by Austral-American Productions.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92639819 |title=TASMANIAN FILM PRODUCER |newspaper=The Examiner (Tasmania) |volume=CI |issue=266 |location=Tasmania, Australia |date=16 January 1943 |accessdate=14 March 2024 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}} The chief backer of this was Sydney stockbroker Gordon Wharton, who formed a syndicate and raised £3,000 to make the film. This amount proved insufficient and Wharton claimed he provided the remaining £1,500 needed himself. (A similar shortfall happened on his next film, Red Sky at Morning).

Australian born Alf Goulding had built a significant career as a director in Hollywood, but had returned to Australia due to US visa regulations.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248822897 |title=The door opened and in walked a director from Hollywood |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |volume=I |issue=51 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=3 November 1940 |accessdate=14 March 2024 |page=22 |via=National Library of Australia}} He had directed several documentaries with the title Australia Marches On and was linked with several proposed film projects.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203200692 |title=AT CREMORNE |newspaper=Truth |issue=2161 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=24 August 1941 |accessdate=14 March 2024 |page=35 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108730605 |title="COBB AND CO." |newspaper=Nepean Times |volume=59 |issue=4004 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=27 November 1941 |accessdate=14 March 2024 |page=1 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Filming started by May 1942.{{Citation

| title=Advertising

| journal=The Bulletin

| volume=63| issue=3247 (6 May 1942)

| location=Sydney, N.S.W

| publisher=John Haynes and J.F. Archibald

| url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-537207837

| id=nla.obj-537207837

| access-date=14 March 2024

| via=Trove

}} The film was shot at the Commonwealth Film Laboratory studios in Sydney, with exteriors at Taronga Park Zoo. Several of the cast were established radio performers.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 196

When the film was released, Wharton estimated it would make at least £40,000 in the USA.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article266662320 |title="A Yank in Australia" Share. |newspaper=The Guardian |issue=578 |location=Western Australia |date=5 May 1944 |accessdate=13 March 2024 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{Citation

| title=Business, Rollery, Etc.

| journal=The Bulletin

| volume=65| issue=3348 (12 Apr 1944)

| location=Sydney, N.S.W

| publisher=John Haynes and J.F. Archibald

| url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-539463465

| id=nla.obj-539463465

| access-date=14 March 2024

| via=Trove

}} This did not happen. However the company went on to make another feature, Red Sky at Morning.{{Citation

| title=AUSTRALIAN FILM PREVIEW: "RED SKY AT MORNING"

| journal=Pertinent.

| volume=2| issue=7 (March 1943)

| location=Sydney

| publisher=Pertinent Publishing Co

| url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3088444347

| id=nla.obj-3088444347

| access-date=14 March 2024

| via=Trove

}}

The film took two years to be released, making its world debut in Brisbane on 11 November 1944.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48961081 |title=FILM PREMIERE ON ARMISTICE NIGHT. |newspaper=The Courier-Mail |location=Brisbane |date=4 November 1944 |accessdate=25 March 2012 |page=5 |via=National Library of Australia}}

The Courier Mail called it "an example of just how bad a motion picture can be... In every department – production, dialogue, story – A Yank in Australia falls short. Incoherence, incredibility, and inconsistency are spread like treacle over the whole thing."{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48953499 |title=New Low Level in Local Film. |newspaper=The Courier-Mail |location=Brisbane |date=13 November 1944 |accessdate=25 March 2012 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}

The Sunday Mail reported that the film was a "nose dive to a new low level in Australian production futility. It would be a shame to mention anyone or anything connected with the film except in terms of anathema... and this is gracious comment."{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article97940762 |title=NELSON BURNS TELLS YOU What's on this Week |newspaper=Sunday Mail |issue=760 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=12 November 1944 |accessdate=14 March 2024 |page=6 |via=National Library of Australia}}

Box office receipts were poor but the film was also released in England and the US.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22315029 |title=Australian Film Producers, What Next?. |newspaper=The Argus |location=Melbourne |date=20 July 1946 |accessdate=25 March 2012 |page=4 Supplement: The Argus Week-End Magazine |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article234630354 |title=No Easy Money In Films |newspaper=Smith's Weekly |volume=XXIX |issue=22 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=26 July 1947 |accessdate=14 March 2024 |page=26 |via=National Library of Australia}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337500/ A Yank in Australia] in the Internet Movie Database
• [https://archive.today/20121204135540/http://colsearch.nfsa.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=A%20Yank%20in%20Australia;querytype=;rec=3;resCount=10 A Yank in Australia] at National Film and Sound Archive
• [http://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/yank-in-australia A Yank in Australia] at Oz Movies

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Category:1942 films

Category:Australian comedy-drama films

Category:1942 comedy-drama films

Category:American comedy-drama films

Category:American black-and-white films

Category:1940s American films

Category:1940s Australian films

Category:1940s English-language films

Category:English-language comedy-drama films