FILM OF AUSTRALIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21130, 12 March 1932, Page 11

FILM OF AUSTRALIA.

u WHITE CAPTIVE" STORY. RECEPTION IN AMERICA. "WASHINGTON, March 3. An enthusiastic but critical reception was accorded in Washington recently to " Blonde Captive," an unusually entertaining and educational pictorial record of Dr. Paul Withington's expedition into Northern Australia, in search of the descendants of the Neanderthal Man. The film shows colourful .scenes of Sydney Harbour and the journey to Melbourne, Adelaide and Broome, and then through bush country, where appear some of do Rougemont's giant turtles digging into the sand and laying eggs. The expedition is shown finding a strange type of pure aborigines, visited for the first time by a white man.' Many savage customs ara illustrated, such a3 men slashing their skins and filling the wounds with clay. The end of the film, showing a supposed white woman, reputed to be the widow of Captain Stevenson, a pearler, who was wrecked, is unconvincing. The tribe are supposed to have rescued her and made her marry an aborigine chief, she having a son by him. It is hardly believable, in spite of a cablegram from Dr. Withington, certifying its authenticity.

Dr. Faul Withington, a Honolulu surgeon, toured Australia in 1929. His hand was poisoned in Queensland in October of that year and lie hastened by aeroplane and train to Sydney for treatment. Tho critical reception accorded the film " Blonde Captive, displayed in the United States as a pictorial record of Dr. Paul Wellington's expedition into Northern Australia, was justified. said Mr. J. T. Beckett, in Sydney.Ho was for years chief inspector of aborigines for tho Commonwealth Government in those parts. In the first place "giant' turtles do not exist. Only the female turtles coma ashore, and though they are larger t an the males, whose whole life is spent in tho sea after being hatched, the} to the same size as all edible turtles (Chelonia midas) in other parts ot the world. , , • There is positively no strange tribe of aborigines unknown to the Commonwealth Government, or that the. Commonwealth Government has not been informed about. Even in Central Australia every tribe has come into contact with white]people. No white woman could possibly be m. rried to an aboriginal chief (there are na chiefs) j nor would any aboriginal ma* keep a white woman with mm.