100,000 Cobbers is a 1942 dramatised documentary made by director Ken G. Hall for the Australian Department of Information during World War II to boost recruitment into the armed forces.
Grant Taylor, Joe Valli and Shirley Ann Richards play fictitious characters.
[2] Five men enlist in the AIF – laid back Bill; World War I veteran Scotty, who pretends to be 37 years old; an "old school tie" businessman Peter, who is running his dead father's business, and whose secretary Miss Lane leaves for overseas service as a VAD; the rebellious "Bluey" William Baker; and Jim, who leaves behind his new wife, Jean.
The movie ends with a quote from Henry Lawson, "I tell you the star of the south shall rise... in the lurid clouds of war".
Some of the cast were billed with their military rank: Cinesound Productions were commissioned to make the film by the Department of Information and its Minister Harry Foll.
The theme of it was to "show that a man may not have a friend in the world, but from the moment he joins the Army he has "cobbers" in plenty.
[7][8] Fleeting, Taylor, Joe Vallie, Lorna Westbrook, Aileen Britton and Shirley Ann Richards had all appeared in films for Ken G. Hall previously.
Eighteen-year-olds formed a big percentage, and they were out to prove their manhood by stacking their own normal conversation with every four-letter word in the language.
There was an AIF officers' training school also in the area, with keen young men aspiring to leadership.
[19] The West Australian wrote that: It is a film for everybody, a picture everyone should see and one that no Australian can view without a feeling of pride and genuine emotion... From the time the recruits reach the enlistment depot every phase of their lives and training is presented with a realism hitherto lacking in some of our propaganda films.