-628 The most interesting thing about the Siege of Pinchgut are the numbers of scenes of the City of Sydney and some of its suburbs in the 1950s, which is fascinating to review nearly 60 years later. The story involves an escaped criminal (Aldo Ray), who protests his innocence, and the 3 men who have helped him escape from custody. They attempt a nighttime escape by boat through Sydney Harbour but are forced aground on Pinchgut Island - now much better known as Fort Denison - where they hold hostage the caretaker and his family. The movie has quite an interesting plot and the acting is quite good. It does fall apart a little towards the end as the plot descends into melodrama and the key question of Ray's innocence or guilt is never resolved. The interest for me as a child of the 50s in Sydney was seeing scenes of various Sydney locations as they were in my childhood. Despite being made by the British studio Ealing and containing a number of British actors, the movie was evidently made with the American market in mind. Not only was the star, Aldo Ray, speaking with an American accent but American spelling was used. In one scene a newspaper headline read "Harbor", which is the American spelling. The British and Australian spelling is "Harbour". Despite its shortcomings, most notably falling into absurdity towards the end, a weak climax and some unresolved issues, the movie held my interest throughout and I can recommend it especially to older Australians for the historical value of the geographical scenes.

Laura Seabrook GEM was showing this early Saturday morning, and I just finished AKA Known as "Four Desperate Men" in the States, but as "The Siege of Pinchgut" here in Australia, this was shown on local TV yesterday. It was rather unusual seeing Sydney in 1959, with double decker buses, trams, and police vans with "POLICE E&R FORCE" on the side of them, and the lowish skyline of Northern Sydney.The film follows the pattern of the period which would have one or two overseas stars to help sell the film elsewhere. This time it's Aldo Ray and Carlo Giustini. It also has a solid performance by Gerry Duggan (whom I saw in a Skippy repeat last week) and Alan Tilvern as the hard-headed Superintendent Hanna. Like many films of the time, accents are either well known dialects (like Irish), "educated" (like Hanna's) or "larrikin" like the main characters brother Joey.Very much a drama of who will and won't survive, including a good portion of Sydney, with a live naval gun trained on a boat full of explosives! There's a number of sly digs on Australian society in the film, like a two-up game running in the middle of an evacuation. I also liked the reference to "the old tram depot, about to be demolished for our new Opera House" - little did they know where that'd lead! Good stuff and a look at the past.

BastardfromtheBush I first saw this particular flick at the now famous Sydney cultural icon, The Cremorne Orpheum in Sydney. I've always regarded Aldo Ray as a very good actor seeing him in Erskine Caldwell's 'God's Little Acre'and with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Ustinov in 'We're No Angels'. However, the screenplay was really pushing the envelope to achieve the 'suspension of disbelief' to make an audience accept that an American psycho who's reason for being in Australia in the first place,was never explained, could just muscle in and take over Pinchgut right in the middle of Sydney Harbour and hold the whole city to ransom by pointing a Big Bertha canon directly at a ship carrying high explosives...well, I just don't buy it. Also the coppers lining the arc of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, ready to blow Aldo Ray's head off, if he happened to show his face....well, melodramatic in the extreme. Just not going to happen. I think that even in those days, the Sydney Water Police would just seal the island off and send the equivalent of a SWAT team by helicopters or scuba divers to deal with Aldo Ray. Added to this, Matt Kirk (the Aldo Ray character) and Johnny are supposed to be older & kid brothers; Matt talks to him as if he's an infatuated homosexual which I found laughable. So there are many implausible events in this brave '59 production which I could have believed if an Australian escapee from Long Bay Gaol or Callan Park Mental Asylum pulled this stunt or Aldo Ray played a psycho U.S. Serviceman who was obsessively infatuated with the Pinchgut Island caretaker's daughter instead of his kid brother and was in a position to know first-hand that there was a ship docked in the harbour carrying high explosives to blow the Bridge, Circular Quay, Balmain and Wooloomooloo sky-high. Nevertheless, it was a fun-filled Saturday afternoon, when I saw it many years ago at the Cremorne Orpheum.

John (opsbooks) It's been decades since I viewed this rare B&W movie of the late 1950s. What I remember is the great photography, the police sharpshooters lined up atop the great Sydney Harbour Bridge arch (our much-loved 'coathanger') many hundreds of feet above the water and the laughable acting performance of poor old Aldo Ray. Forget the acting, though, and enjoy the action as the coppers try to take out the baddies on the Sydney Harbour fortress of Pinchgut, otherwise known as Fort Dennison.Update, 2007. I came across the movie tie-in paperback authored by George Kay which includes 8 b/w photos from the movie. Published in England by Four Square Books in 1962.