A motor mechanic speaks about how he was working happily in 1939, not thinking much of the crisis in Europe; he subsequently began making aircraft and enlisted in the Volunteer Defence Force.
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.
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 Americans and English for whom the film is intended will see the best exposition yet sent abroad of our war effort, our vast spaces (and let me get this in: I’m thinking of standing for a Federal seat), our rural and other industries and, above all, the potentialities still awaiting development.
Well written, yet not – without some trace of the bombast, which unfortunately seems characteristic of so many of our propaganda film narratives, the picture graphically reviews our national contribution to the Allied cause.
The general consensus was the film compared poorly to its companion feature, Desert Victory (1943), and should not have used actors instead of real people.
Downstairs, where the audience comprised soldiers, mostly taken from the front line to attend a special training school at Duntroon, there was loud laughter at some scenes intended to be impressive.
There were only actors and a strong political flavour in South-west Pacific... Any audience ran be forgiven for laughing in the wrong place.
Some of the characters employed are more caricatures or comedians than average Australian people (Bert Bailey is there in his Dad part of On Our Selection fame), and the servicemen types are quite inadequate.
The pictorial representation of factory development, of farm and pasture, and of the Allied Works Council projects, is good, but in all else Producer-Director Ken G. Hall has made a far too low assessment of the intelligence of his prospective audiences.
No-it's not one of Damien Parer's sweaty heroes from "Road to Kokoda" speaking, but the ex manager of a cosmetics factory talking about his taxes.
The emphasis throughout is on the home front, its trials, and Its achievements, the last' described with a complacency that's naive and perhaps ill judged in a film intended for export.
On the debit side were a naive boastfulness ('things we taught the Allied Nations'), emphasis on the amateur aspect of Australia's war work (plenty about factory operatives who used to make and sell cosmetics, but not a word about the sizeable heavy industries operating for years), too much home front, too little front line, and too many of those old familiar faces — like 'Dad' Bert Bailey — from screen and vaudeville.
There seemed to be a feeling of 'Dad 'n' Dave' in types and dialogue right through the film.... Summary — 'South-West Pacific' good enough as a civilian morale booster, for home consumption, but definitely not for export.
[19][20] The then-leader of the opposition, Arthur Fadden, complained that the movie was being used for electioneering purposes (it was near the time of the 1943 election) and asked for it to be withdrawn from distribution.
[21] Despite Ashley's protests, Curtin ordered that all future screenings of South West Pacific be stopped, and the movie be replaced by an entirely new documentary to be made later.
[26] The government later made Jungle Patrol (1944), set during the Markham, Ramu and Finisterre campaigns, which used real soldiers and emphasised fighting troops.