Kitch’s Top 5 World War One Movies: #1 – Gallipoli

Director: Peter Weir
Release Date: August 1981
Starring: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee & Bill Kerr.

In A Few Words: The story of two friends from rural Western Australia who volunteer to join the Australian light horse and find themselves on the Gallipoli battlefield.

Spoilers Ahead

Peter Weir is a genius. 

The gold standard of Australian war films – and one that sparked the creation of some other good ones, like The Lighthorsemen and Breaker Morant – and quite possibly one of the best Australian films of any genre. Peter Weir’s work is a masterpiece, and although the title suggests a close look at the battle, the reality is that the story sends an anti-war message and is more about the closeness of two mates who end up on Gallipoli, and involved in the fateful Battle of the Nek in August 1015, which was a part of a greater August offensive designed by Sir Ian Hamilton.

Gibson and Lee as Frank Dunne and Archy Hamilton are fantastic. Their chemistry was apparent right from their first scene together. They are contrasting characters: Archy, a track sprinter who idolises 100 yard sprinter Harry Lascelles, is swept up in the fervour of war, whilst Frank joins up because Archie is going. He’s not so gung-ho about things, and can even be classed as a little jaded and cynical about the need to protect the British empire.

The two friends are separated at enlistment, because Frank can’t ride a horse with enough talent to enlist with the light horse. Whilst Archy heads off with the light horse, Frank joins up with three friends who worked with him on the railway in Western Australia and heads to Egypt as an infantryman. It’s during a training exercise in the desert outside Cairo that Frank and Archy reunite, and because the light horse regiments are being sent to Gallipoli without their horses, basically as extra infantry.

One of the overriding themes in the movie is a loss of innocence, and you can feel it coming, as the Australians, naïve and not knowing what they’re getting themselves in for over on Gallipoli, spend their time touring Cairo, climbing the pyramids and generally enjoying themselves.

All of that changes once they arrive on Gallipoli. The battlefield is first glimpsed in the night time, and with no small amount of wonder by the two friends. They arrive an undetermined period of time into the campaign, and the trench system is well defined. Most of the men who have been on the peninsula since the first day deal with the battle in a rather nonchalant manner, making jokes about everything, which belies the grim situation that the Australians find themselves in. They’re clinging precariously to a very narrow slice of Turkish countryside. Archy and Frank have to learn quickly how things work.

It’s soon clear that the light horse regiments (and others) have been brought to Gallipoli to be the forefront of a new offensive that is designed to break the stalemate on the Peninsula. There will be two Australian attacks: the infantry at Lone Pine and, later, the lighthorse at The Nek. Elsewhere, British infantry will make a fresh landing at Suvla Bay and New Zealand troops were to try for the summit.

After the infantry attack is a half-success – the infantry takes the first enemy trenches, but are subject to heavy Turkish counter attacks – Frank learns that one of his friends was killed and another mortally wounded during the initial charge.

What follows is the most extraordinary end to a film I can remember. The light horse wait out the night, knowing they will be charging into the teeth of the Turkish guns. An early morning bombardment concludes too early, due to officers’ watches not telling the same time. Archy is recognised as a track star by his commanding officer, and is requested to become a runner. He declines, wanting to take part in the attack, so Frank takes the job.

The attack is a disaster. Two waves are cut down, and Frank is sent to brigade headquarters to tell them the situation is hopeless, but the officer in charge has received incorrect reports that marker flags have been seen in Turkish trenches, so the attack is ordered to proceed. Another wave is killed outright, so Frank is sent to the beach, to General HQ, to try and have the last attack, of which Archy is a part, cancelled.

Frank receives those orders, but doesn’t make it back in time. The attack is called, and the last wave leave their trenches. The anguished cry from Frank as he collapses against the sandbagged wall, so close yet so far, is one that will remain with you forever, and perhaps one of the most iconic moments in Australian cinema. Second only, perhaps, to the last scene of the movie – a freeze-frame that will definitely remain imprinted on your mind. It’s of Archy, his chest hit by a flurry of machine gun bullets. 

That’s the film. It fades to black, and you’re left to ponder the futility of war. The action at The Nek was as close to organised murder as there was on a Great War battlefield. The West Australian lighthorsemen had no chance. None at all. As a final message in a movie epic full of them, it’s pretty poignant.