Kitch’s Top 5 World War One Movies: #2 – The Lighthorsemen

Director: Simon Wincer
Release Date: September 1987
Starring: Jon Blake, Peter Phelps, John Walton and Sigrid Thornton.

In A Few Words: The story of a four-man section in the Australian light horse regiment fighting in Palestine in 1917, and particularly focusing on.

Spoilers Ahead

Where Gallipoli’s ending was a tear-jerker, the ending to The Lighthorsemen, a similar new-wave Australian film – you know, the type that portrays the Anzacs as being knockabout larrikin rogues who dislike British officers and are better soldiers than the stuffy Brits allow them to be – has a much happier end.

A vehicle for the promising star Jon Blake, who had taken all before him starring in The Anzacs miniseries alongside Paul Hogan, it was at the conclusion of filming, and after a wrap party that Blake was involved in a car accident that turned him into a vegetable for the rest of his life. For that reason, The Lighthorsemen will always be remembered in the annals of Australian cinematic history with more than a touch of sadness attached. Even so, this is one of my favourite films.

The story of four mates, led by Irish-Australian Scotty (Blake), along with fellow Gallipoli veterans Tas (Walton), Chiller and Frank, leads up to the Australian charge on Beersheba. That event, a resounding victory, is the last great cavalry charge, and successful mostly because the Turks kept expecting the Australians to dismount and finish their attack on foot, as they had done in previous encounters. Instead, they remained on horseback and bold charged wielding only bayonets, into the teeth of the Turkish guns, and saved the entire army, who were, by that stage, dangerously close to running out of water.

After an early skirmish robs the foursome of one of their number, a replacement from Victoria, Dave (Phelps) comes aboard, but it is soon clear that he does not have the stomach for war, and fails to fire his gun in a couple of engagements. This enrages Tas, who doesn’t like the idea of having a man he perceives to be a coward in his midst. His unwillingness to pull the trigger nearly gets him killed during an ambush on some Turkish horsemen.

Dave is wounded during a raid by enemy aircraft – a very spectacular scene – and transfers to the Red Cross ambulance service, where he doesn’t have to kill anyone. There, he meets nurse Anne (Thornton), and the two quickly strike up a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, there are plans afoot by British intelligence to distract the Turks from the real target of the next push by the Allied armies, which is indeed aimed at the town of Beersheba. The German adviser to Turkish defenders in Beersheba buys the ruse. This is crucial, because the decision is made not to destroy the town’s water supply, which is really what the Australians need. The town is fairly inconsequential, but it’s wells are not.

The South Australian desert doubles nicely for Beersheba and the flat valley in which the town sits. Throughout most of the day, the light horse regiment is forced to wait as British cavalry and New Zealand infantry attack the town with no success. Then, late in the afternoon, with daylight and water running out, the Australians are sent at the town, a proper charge, rather than dismounting halfway.

Director Dean Semler rises to the occasion in the last quarter of the film, and it’s not hard to see how much money was poured into the movie, and, especially into the final charge sequence. There are extras galore, sweeping helicopter shots of the charge unfolding through the large, flat valley, and a fantastic musical score that’ll get your heart racing. Semler’s switching between the approaching Australians and clearly-confused enemy gunners is well done, with generals on both sides counting down the distance to the town.

It’s amazing to think that the Australians were thrown into the fray at the last minute, galloped towards the town – and into history, for that matter – with just bayonets and a fair amount of guts. There are shockingly realistic scenes of horses and men driven into the desert floor as their bandoliers of ammunition explode.  Miraculously, only 31 Australians were killed in the unlikeliest of charges.

Once the Australians make it over the trenches, vicious hand to hand fighting takes place and Scotty, as befitting the hero of the movie, needs to stop the Germans from destroying the wells. He’s so good as Scotty, Blake, and it’s such a shame that his talents were lost to us so soon afterward.

A remarkable victory for the Australians saves the attacking army from true disaster, and vaults the light horse regiments into the annals of our country’s military history. Of course, there’s a happy ending to roll us to the credits, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and some rolling text before the credits let us all know what happened to the characters in later life.

The Lighthorsemen is a fitting tribute to an oft-overlooked victory, and one that, sadly, seems to have been shadowed by Weir’s Gallipoli. It deserves wider acclaim and broadcast.