Cast Alec Kellaway as the Mechanic (the former motor mechanic) John Nugent-Hayward as Harry, the Factory Manager Bert Bailey as Old Man Stewart, the Farmer Bill Perryman as the Road Builder Muriel Steinbeck as Gwennie, the Munition Worker Walter Pym as Bill, the Sailor George Randall as the Merchant Seaman Peter Finch as the RAAF pilot Ralph Smart as the RAF pilot Joe Valli as the RAF mechanic Chips Rafferty as the RAAF mechanic Wayne Froman as USAC mechanic Grant Taylor as AIF soldier Ron Randell as US soldier Production Various actors were granted leave from the armed services to appear in the movie, including Gunner Peter Finch, Sgt. Ron Taylor, LAC Chips Rafferty, PO Ralph Smart, Joe Valli, Ron Randell and Sergeant-Major Walter Pym and Squadron Leader George Randall. Jungle scenes were reconstructed in Cinesound's studio under the supervision of Damien Parer. The US Army lent fighting equipment for battle scenes. To add realism to sequences live ammunition was used. Ken Hall later said he wanted to use professional actors rather than real workers and farmers "to give the film a professional finish, and that the majority of them were real-life war workers, either in the services, or in essential industry." Prime Minister John Curtin wrote a special foreword for the film which stated that the film: Was made to give the people of Great Britain, America, Soviet Russia, and the United Nations some accurate idea of Australia at war. The Commonwealth Government has released this film for exhibition throughout Australia, in the feeling that every citizen will take pride in a record of national achievement. You are about to see a motion picture which you helped to make as a member of thee fighting forces, as a worker on the home front, as a tacpayer, as a buyer of war bonds. Release The film had its first public screening in Hobart on 12 May when Senator Bill Ashley, the then-Minister for Information, showed it after giving a talk. The film premiered to commercial audiences in Sydney at the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney in June 1943. It had been passed without cuts by the government censor, but the word "bloody", which was spoken twice in the jungle scenes, was removed by a cleric who ran the Lyceum. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that: South-West Pacific is one of the best, and certainly the most comprehensive, of the propaganda films