Weekly Review No. 310 - Mail Run

This post-war Weekly Review boards a RNZAF Dakota flying “the longest air route in the world”: a weekly 17,000 mile ‘hop’ taking mail to Jayforce, the Kiwi occupation force in Japan. Auckland to Iwakuni via Norfolk Island, Australia (including a pub pit-stop in the outback), Indonesia, the slums of Singapore, Saigon, Hong Kong; then Okinawa, Manilla and home. Director Cecil Holmes’ pithy comments on postcolonial friction and rich and poor avoided censorship, but won a warning not to rock the boat. The next year he was controversially sacked from the National Film Unit.

Rustling cattle is almost an accepted occupation thereabouts, no doubt these blokes have rustled a few in their time …

– The narrator, on locals in the Australian outback

Key Cast & Crew

Cecil Holmes

Director, Editor, Writer

Roger Mirams

Camera

Selwyn Toogood

Narrator

Rex Walden

Narrator