Pacific Adventure Backdrop Blur
Pacific Adventure Poster

Pacific Adventure

An Australian biopic about the life of pioneering aviator Charles "Smithy" Kingsford-Smith. The film is unusually frank about the controversies that occasionally dogged him. PG Taylor and Billy Hughes both make appearances playing themselves.

Top Cast

  • Ron Randell

    Ron Randell

    Charles Kingsford-Smith

  • Muriel Steinbeck

    Muriel Steinbeck

    Lady M. Kingsford Smith

  • Joy Nichols

    Joy Nichols

    Kay Sutton

  • Nan Taylor

    Nan Taylor

    Nan Kingsford Smith

  • John Dunne

    John Dunne

    Harold Kingsford Smith

  • Alec Kellaway

    Alec Kellaway

    Captain G. Allan Hancock

  • John Dease

    John Dease

    Sir Hubert Wilkins

  • John Tate

    John Tate

    Charles Ulm

Overview

An Australian biopic about the life of pioneering aviator Charles "Smithy" Kingsford-Smith. The film is unusually frank about the controversies that occasionally dogged him. PG Taylor and Billy Hughes both make appearances playing themselves.

Rating

7.0 / 10
5 Reviews
0 Popular

1 Reviews

  • CinemaSerf
    CinemaSerf
    7 Jan 14, 2025

    He's had his portrait on a dollar coin and an airport named after him, but who exactly was Charles Kingsford-Smith? Well this lengthy but quite engaging biopic casts Ron Randell in that role and we follow his quite remarkable story. He's a budding aviator, injured and decorated by the King during the war, who is determined to make long-haul flights connecting his home of Australia to the rest of the world a reality. Initially it's London to Sydney he wants to attempt, but money is tight and nobody in political office believes he can make the 12,000 mille trip. Maybe there's more success to be had getting to the USA? Well that's where he meets with a little more promise, but there's still a gruelling and perilous task ahead of him. Randell turns in quite a likeable effort here as the young pioneer and there's quite a bit of decent aviation photography, albeit rather rudimentarily stitched together, to help tell the story of a brave and visionary man who wasn't afraid to grasp the nettle. The assembled supporting cast do their jobs well enough and he frustrations of the red tape and indifference he squared up against are presented loud and clear as it portrays a man of determination quite powerfully. Sure, there's a soupçon of romance but not enough to stall the pace and this fits in nicely to the "The First of the Few" (1942) group of films.

Recommendations

Eight Men Out

Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching, hands-on manager who underpays his players and treats them with disdain. And when gamblers and hustlers discover that Comiskey's demoralized players are ripe for a money-making scheme, one by one the team members agree to throw the World Series. But when the White Sox are defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes, ripping the cover off America's favorite pastime.

Eight Men Out

6.9 1988