Director
Fred Zinnemann was riding a crest in the '50s with movies like
High Noon,
From Here to Eternity,
Oklahoma, and his success continues in this western-style drama set in Australia in the 1920s. Ida Carmody (
Deborah Kerr) is married to Paddy (
Robert Mitchum), a sheep drover whose nomadic existence makes him blissfully content. Neither Ida nor their son Sean share his love for roaming, in fact, Ida convinces her husband to take on a job as a sheep-shearer so they can finally have enough to get a mortgage on a farm. At first Paddy agrees but obviously does not know his own mind because in no time at all, he rebels -- though that is not the end of it.
Peter Ustinov is also featured as Vanneker, a bachelor who comes to stay with the family, and
Glynis Johns plays a hotelkeeper out to change Vanneker's non-marital status. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide