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Based on the story of the start of Australia's colonisation. An American medical student is falsely convicted of robbery, with his sentence involving the torturous voyage with other prisoners to the new penal colony at Botany Bay. Because of his attempt to escape, evil Captain Gilbert decides to return him to England on charges of mutiny.
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Cast & crew
Directed by John Farrow
Alan LaddHugh Tallant
James MasonCapt. Paul Gilbert
Patricia MedinaSally Munroe
Cedric HardwickeGov. Phillip
Murray MathesonRev. Mortimer Thynne
Anita Sharp-BolsterMoll Cudlip (as Anita Bolster)
Jonathan HarrisTom Oakly
Hugh PryseNed Inching
Dorothy PattenMrs. Nellie GarthJohn HardyNat GarthMalcolm Lee BeggsNick SabbAlec HarfordBrig-keeper JenkinsImages · 2
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Reviews · from TMDB members
CinemaSerfJul 17, 2025
Following the death of his parents from the plague, American “Tallant” (Alan Ladd) came back to the mother country only to get embroiled with a crooked inheritance agent and find himself found guilty of stealing his own cash! Transportation was the order of the day, so he is imprisoned in the ship of “Capt. Gilbert” (James Mason) and off they set on the eight month voyage to New South Wales. En route, it soon appears that “Gilbert” might have learned the arts of seamanship fr… Read more
om Captain Bligh, so when the decent young “Tallant” falls in with the enigmatic “Sally” (Patricia Medina) he ends up earning the animosity of his host, and after a failed escape attempt is now a marked man. Even though he has a modicum of medical experience and the ship no surgeon, what chance he will make it half way around the world to put his case to the Governor (Sir Cedric Hardwicke)? Mason is on quite decent form as the menacingly jealous officer and Medina does well with a slightly demonic look in her eye but Ladd, he’s as wooden as the mizen mast. He has the all-American football player looks, all right, but as an actor he has all the screen presence of a dead chipmunk. It’s a predictably episodic adventure but whilst all are at sea it’s quite good fun before an ending that is all a bit disappointingly rushed and which I felt rather let it all down. Still, there’s plenty going on, even a keel-hauling, and plenty of folks get clunked on the head or shot or drowned, so it is worth a watch.