''Forty Thousand Horsemen'' (aka ''40,000 Horsemen'') is a 1940 Australian war film directed by Charles Chauvel. The film tells the story of the

Australian Light Horse Australian Light Horse were mounted troops with characteristics of both cavalry and mounted infantry, who served in the Second Boer War and World War I. During the inter-war years, a number of regiments were raised as part of Australia's part-t ...

(mounted rifleman as distinct from cavalry) which operated in the desert at the Sinai and Palestine campaign during World War I. It follows the adventures of three rowdy heroes in fighting and romance. The film culminates at the Battle of Beersheba which is reputedly "the last successful cavalry charge in history". The film was clearly a propaganda weapon, to aid in recruitment and lift the pride of Australians at home during World War II. It was one of the most successful Australian movies of its day.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 192. It was later remade in 1987 as '' The Lighthorsemen''.

From the Prologue to the movie

When Germany stretched greedy hands towards the Middle East in the war or 1914–1918, a great cavalry force came into being. They were the men from Australia and New Zealand – The

ANZAC The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the Gallipoli campaign. General William Birdwood comm ...

S – the "Mad Bushmen" – the men from "Downunder". Call them what you will – their glories can never grow dim. They met the Germanised Army in the burning desert of Sinai. They fought and suffered to emerge triumphant – the greatest cavalry force of modern times. To these dauntless riders and their gallant horses this story is dedicated. To them with pride, their own sons are saying today - ''"The torch you threw to us, we caught and now our hands will hold it high. Its glorious light will never die!"''

Plot

In 1916 Jerusalem, German troops led by Captain Von Schiller arrest French wine seller Paul Rouget for spying and hang him. His daughter Juliet goes into hiding dressed as a boy and starts spying on the Germans. Three members of the Australian Lighthorse, Red, Larry and Jim, are enjoying themselves (including a game of two-up) on leave in Cairo, when called to fight the Turks. They take part in several battles including the march to Ogratina and the

Battle of Romani The Battle of Romani was the last ground attack of the Central Powers on the Suez Canal at the beginning of the Sinai and Palestine campaign during the First World War. The battle was fought between 3 and 5 August 1916 near the Egyptian town ...

. Red is separated from the others after one battle and has his life saved by Juliet, who he thinks is an Arab boy. Red is reunited with his friends and they arrive at an Arab village. He meets Juliet and realises she was the boy who saved his life. They begin a romance. The Battle of Gaza takes place; Jim and Larry are mortally wounded and Red is captured. He is sent to Beersheba to work as slave labour and discovers the town is wired with explosives. Juliet rescues him and they spend the night together in a hut. Jim manages to rejoin his unit in time to participate in the charge of the Light Horse at the Battle of Beersheba, and stops Von Schiller before he detonates the explosives. The Germans and Turks are defeated and a wounded Red is reunited with Juliet.

Cast

* Grant Taylor as Red Gallagher *

Betty Bryant Elizabeth Bryant Silverstein (; 27 June 19203 October 2005), better known as Betty Bryant, was a British-born Australian actress known for playing the lead character in ''Forty Thousand Horsemen''. Early life Bryant was born on 27 June 1920 in ...

as Juliette Rouget * Pat Twohill as Larry *

Chips Rafferty John William Pilbean Goffage MBE (26 March 190927 May 1971), known professionally as Chips Rafferty, was an Australian actor. Called "the living symbol of the typical Australian", Rafferty's career stretched from the late 1930s until his death ...

as Jim *Eric Reiman as Von Schiller *

Joe Valli Joseph George McParlane (also spelled McFarlane and McPharlane; 13 August 1885 – 29 May 1967), known as Joe Valli, was a Scottish-Australian actor who worked in vaudeville and films. He had a long-running vaudeville partnership with Pat Hanna as ...

as Scotty * Kenneth Brampton as German officer *Albert C. Winn as Sheik Abu *Harvey Adams as Von Hausen *Norman Maxwell as Ismet *Harry Abdy as Paul Rouget *Pat Penny as Captain Seidi *Charles Zoli as cafe owner *Claude Turton as Othman *Theo Lianos as Abdul *Roy Mannix as Light Horse sergeant *Edna Emmett *Vera Kandy *Iris Kennedy *joy Heart *

Michael Pate Michael Pate OAM (born Edward John Pate; 26 February 1920 – 1 September 2008) was an Australian actor, writer, director, and producer, who also worked in Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. Biography Early life Pate was born in Drum ...

as Arab * Harold (Roy) Phillips as Arab

Production

Development

Chauvel was the nephew of Sir

Harry Chauvel General Sir Henry George Chauvel, (16 April 1865 – 4 March 1945) was a senior officer of the Australian Imperial Force who fought at Gallipoli and during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of the First World W ...

, commander of the

during the Sinai and Palestine campaign and had long planned a film based on the exploits of the Light Horse. It was originally to be titled ''Thunder Over the Desert''. To raise funds for a movie, Chauvel shot a £5,000 "teaser" sequence, consisting of a cavalry charge based around the Battle of Beersheba. The cost for this was paid for by Herc McIntyre, managing director of

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

in Australia who was a long-time friend and associate of Chauvel's. Filming of this sequence took place on 1 February 1938 on the

Cronulla sand dunes The Cronulla sand dunes, also known officially as the Cronulla Sand Dune and Wanda Beach Coastal Landscape, are an open space, heritage-listed nature conservation, and visitor attraction located on the Kurnell Peninsula at Lindum Road, Kurn ...

using a cavalry division of the

, which had been performing in the New South Wales sesquicentenary celebrations. The charge was filmed by a four-camera unit, composed of

Frank Hurley James Francis "Frank" Hurley (15 October 1885 – 16 January 1962) was an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces durin ...

Tasman Higgins Tasman Higgins (8 April 1888 – 4 June 1953) was an Australian cinematographer during the early days of the Australian film industry, working for such directors as Charles Chauvel, Raymond Longford, Beaumont Smith, Louise Lovely and Rupert Kath ...

, Bert Nicholas and

John Heyer John Whitefoord Heyer (14 September 1916 – 19 June 2001) was an Australian documentary filmmaker, who is often described as the father of Australian documentary film.''Oxford companion to Australian film'' (1999) John Heyer spent the majo ...

. A cavalryman was injured during the shoot. In 1939 Chauvel and McIntyre formed Famous Films Ltd to make the movie. Chauvel used the footage to raise the budget, which was originally announced at £25,000. £5,000 was provided by McIntyre and £10,000 from

Hoyts The Hoyts Group of companies in Australia and New Zealand includes Hoyts Cinemas and Val Morgan. Hoyts operates more than 450 cinema screens and 55,000 seats, making it Australia's second largest movie exhibitor after Event Hospita ...

. The New South Wales government agreed to guarantee a bank overdraft of £15,000 although they did not invest directly in the movie.

Casting

The movie marked the first lead role for Grant Taylor, who rose to prominence in ''

Dad Rudd, MP ''Dad Rudd, M.P.'' is a 1940 comedy that was the last of four films made by Ken G. Hall starring Bert Bailey as Dad Rudd. It was the last feature film directed by Hall prior to the war and the last made by Cinesound Productions, Bert Bailey and ...

'' (1940). It was the first sizeable role for

, who had been cast after a screen test. Chauvel described him as "a cross between Slim Summerville and Jame Stewart, and has a variety of droll yet natural humour."

reprised his Scottish soldier from

Pat Hanna George Patrick "Pat" Hanna (born 18 March 1888 in Whitianga, New Zealand – 24 October 1973 in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, England) was a New Zealand-born film producer, he was a soldier of the First World War who entertained post-war audience ...

's Digger Shows. Taylor was paid £15 a week, Rafferty £10 a week.

was a discovery of Elsa Chauvel's. She beat out Pat Firman for the role.

Shooting

Shooting began in May 1940. Interiors were shot in the Cinesound studios at Bondi which Chauvel leased from

Cinesound Productions Cinesound Productions Pty Ltd was an Australian feature film production company, established in June 1931, Cinesound developed out of a group of companies centred on Greater Union Theatres, that covered all facets of the film process, from produ ...

for a three-month period. A second unit was used to build a desert village at Cronulla. The battle scenes were shot there in July and August, using the 1st Light Horse (Machine Gun) Regiment and the 30th Battalion.

Censorship

After the film's preview, the Commonwealth film censor, Creswell O'Reilly, requested three major cuts – display of the dancing girls in a cabaret, the love scene between Red and Juliette in a hut, and alleged cruelty to horses during the final charge. This threatened Chauvel's ability to export the film and screen it in Victoria. Eventually the Minister for Customs,

Eric Harrison Sir Eric John Harrison, (7 September 1892 – 26 September 1974) was an Australian politician and diplomat. He was the inaugural deputy leader of the Liberal Party (1945–1956), and a government minister under four prime ministers. He was lat ...

, overruled the decision and allowed the movie to be screened uncut. The movie was also passed uncut in Victoria.

Release

Critical

Reviews were overwhelmingly positive. The critic from ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' claimed that "there have been some good Australian films before this one, but ''Forty Thousand Horsemen'' has every right to be regarded as the first really great Australian picture." ''Filmink'' magazine later wrote "the film was Taylor's. There had been other notable leading men in Australian films – Snowy Baker, Errol Flynn – but it was really Taylor who was the first tough Aussie star type, that would be so exemplified by Rod Taylor, Jack Thompson, Mel Gibson and Bryan Brown."

Box office

It was a massive success at the box office, grossing £10,000 within its first three weeks of release, enabling Famous Features Ltd to buy out the interest of the New South Wales government for £15,000. The film was seen by 287,000 in Sydney alone during a ten-week run on first release. Female lead Betty Bryant was sent to Singapore for the film's premiere in June 1941. While there she met MGM executive Maurice Silverstein, who she would later marry, leading to her retirement from acting.

Foreign release

The movie was released in the US by Sherman S. Krellberg for Monogram Pictures and was very well received. "Yippee for brawling, boisterous entertainment", wrote the critic for ''The New York Times'', praising Betty Bryant ("whatever it is that leaps across the celluloid barrier, she has") although claiming the story was "foolish". The ''Los Angeles Times'' said the film was "conventional in formula but enlivened by stirring battle scenes – and new faces." "Contains all the color and lusty vigor of the men themselves" said ''The Washington Post''. It earned over £40,000 in the UK. In 1954 the film was cut down to 50 minutes for screening on US television.

References

;Citations ;Sources *

External links

*
Complete copyright material including full script
at National Archives of Australia
Review of film
at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''
''Forty Thousand Horsemen''
at National Film and Sound Archive
''Forty Thousand Horsemen''
at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...

''Forty Thousand Horsemen''
at Oz Movies
Brian Trenchard-Smith on ''40,000 Horsemen''
at

Trailers from Hell ''Trailers from Hell'' (branded as ''Trailers from Hell!'') is a web series in which filmmakers discuss and promote individual movies through commenting on their trailers. While the series emphasizes horror, science fiction, fantasy, cult, and expl ...

Review of film
at ''Variety''
Review of film
at ''Variety'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Forty Thousand Horsemen Australian Light Horse 1940 films 1940s English-language films World War I films set in the Middle East Australian World War II propaganda films Films set in the Ottoman Empire 1940 war films Australian World War I films Australian black-and-white films 1940s Australian films