Bush Christmas [DVD] [1947]

Bush Christmas can be described as an Australian western, albeit with a juvenile slant (indeed, it was produced on behalf of J. Arthur Rank's Children's Cinema Club). Set in the mountains of New South Wales, the story concerns a family of Australian kids who are heading homeward for the Christmas holidays. En route, they unwittingly provide the information which enables a band of thieves to steal their father's horses. Deciding to set things right on their own, the children head into the Blue Mountains to track down the thieves, relying on Aborginal survival skills to keep themselves going. The nominal star is the popular Chips Rafferty, playing a misleading likeable horse rustler. Though initially released in England in June of 1947, Bush Christmas has since become a TV Yuletide perennial throughout the English-speaking world.~Hal Erickson