rustler Larry Taylor – Burke, new rustler Russell Napier – Banker Green Max Wagner – Sergeant Goring Bartlett Mullins – Paddy Ewen Solon – Sergeant Arthur Production Development Ealing Studios had planned to make the film after The Overlanders (1946) and Eureka Stockade (1949), and they hired William Lipscomb to do the script. Gregory Peck at one stage was announced as a possible star. In June 1949 Ealing announced Ralph Smart would direct the film after Bitter Springs at an estimated budget of £250,000 with John McCallum as a possible star. Ken G. Hall wanted to direct. However plans to make the film were hampered by the closing of Pagewood Studios. Leslie Norman was keen to produce. Then in the mid 1950s director Jack Lee and Joe Janni had a big hit with the Australian-themed A Town Like Alice (1956), starring Peter Finch and written by Lipscomb. Rank put Lee and Janni under contract for two years and had Finch under contract. The three were reunited for the movie. Peter Finch had made The Shiralee (1957) in Australia immediately before. Jack Lee later said: I made a mistake choosing Robbery Under Arms, a complicated Victorian novel with masses of plots and subplots and too much moralising. However I went ahead and chose the part for Peter Finch, who complained that he was overshadowed by everyone else, and in a way he was right. Janni and I weren't happy with the script and would have liked to put it off for another year. But we were under pressure from Rank and we had to go ahead with an inadequate script. There are one or two nice scenes in it but it's too slow and talky. Vincent Ball said Finch suggested to Lee that Ball and Finch play the Marsden boys but John Davis "insisted that contract artistes be used for the leads". Ball agreed to play a smaller role if he could go to Australia. He was away "ten or eleven weeks" on salary to say one line in Australia filming the rest of his scenes at Pinewood. Shooting Shooting began in January 1957 on location in Australia at the Flinders Ranges, South Australia and near Bourke, New South Wales, with two days filming at Pagewood Studios. In April the unit moved to the UK where interiors and exteriors were shot at Pinewood studios in Buckinghamshire. During the making of the