Kingsford Smith travels to the United States, staying with his brother Harold in San Francisco, to try and raise funds for the trip.

Kingsford Smith buys the plane, an aircraft called The Southern Cross, but struggles to raise finance.

Kingsford Smith returns to the USA where Hubert Wilkins warns him that even if he is successful, he will not reap the benefits of his work in his life.

Hancock is enthusiastic about supporting Kingsford Smith in order to strengthen the links between America and Australia, especially in case they ever go to war against Japan.

When the government give the England-Australia airmail contract to another airline, Kingsford Smith is forced to take people on joy flights to make a living.

Kingsford Smith almost dies flying to New Zealand with Bill Taylor and John Stannage, and subsequently, retires the Southern Cross.

"[7] Pery approached Ken G. Hall, who was Australia's most commercially successful director, and asked him to make a film about an Australian who was well known internationally.

[10] Hall commissioned treatments from several writers, including Jesse Lasky, Jr., who was then stationed at Cinesound Productions with the US Signal Corps; Josephine O'Neill, a Sydney film critic; Kenneth Slessor, film critic and poet; and Max Afford, one of Australia's leading playwrights and radio writers.

[13] The treatment was adapted by Alec Coppel, an Australian writer who had enjoyed success in London and returned to Australia during the war.

The film invented some fictional characters, such as Kay Sutton, an American girl who romances Smithy and helps him raise funds to fly across the Pacific.

Hall preferred Finch but sent extensive screen tests of both actors with Muriel Steinbeck back to Columbia in Hollywood.

The aircraft used in Smithy was the genuine Southern Cross, which had been purchased by the Australian Government 10 years earlier and refurbished by the RAAF.

[22] A surplus RAAF CAC Boomerang was used in flying sequences for Kingsford Smith's Lady Southern Cross Lockheed Altair.

The Los Angeles Times noted the film "while technically acceptable is pretty much a stereotype of all the other histories of aviation pioneering... Ron Randell makes a likeable hero.

"[30] The New York Times wrote that "... it is unfortunate that the people who made this picture ... did not draw a more exciting and exacting drama out of the colourful career of the noted airman.

Picture's documentary style fails to build audience interest and the market for this entry obviously lies in the double bills... Ron Randell... is forthright and virile enough as Smith but poor direction and a faulty script fail to give him an opportunity to exhibit his true thesping prowess.

He later arranged for Smithy to be drastically re-cut and re-edited for its US release, calling it Pacific Adventure, removing references to Australia, along with Pery's credit.