Hearts sink as we open with young Susanne Parrett whistling her pet kangaroo (that clearly resents the one occasion she has to pat it). WHEREVER SHE GOES combines the things that were wrong with the drab post-war English movies with the things that were wrong with naive Australian Cinema, what there was of it. We get a cast whose experience is largely in radio, lots of local colour, notably in the declining gold mining community of Kalgoorlie, and that cherished scenario where one of Australia's own achieves worldwide prominence.
The film is a fictionalised (we are told at the start) account of the childhood of then-famous concert pianist Eileen Joyce, conveniently giving us a local with some star value, a setting that is exotic to world audiences and a chance to lay on lots of classical music, which veteran Ernest Irving manages to use to underpin some of the location action quite effectively.
Young Suzanne Parrett shows a promise, that was sadly never realised, as the child of itinerant parents Muriet Steinbeck and Nigel Love. She encounters a swagman who is (of course) also an artist ("Swaggies are real people who live working about the country"). Overnight she masters the harmonica he gives her, starting her off on her musical ambitions where she (of course) shows exceptional talent. A shift to Kalgoorlie generates some bland drama. Mum Steinbeck has to live in a tent and cook with a kerosene Primus stove and Dad Lovell has to abandon his get rich schemes on a fellow no-hoper's mining leases and come on wearing a tie "I can work for a boss as well as the next man." Young Eileen/Susannne finds herself doing harmonica numbers and playing the battered piano in the boozer to get the sixpence the nun music teacher demands for lessons and buy scores from the snotty music store owner. This escalates to a campaign, where the scrubbed-up miners run a coins in the tin campaign to raise the expenses of the trip to the comic city audition, which (she of) course aces.
We are then treated to a montage of programs to grown Eileen's International and Australian concerts, climaxed by an uncharacteristically spectacular finale drawing back from her playing the packed Albert Hall's Steinway.
All this does finally gets to be quite endearing, coming closer to the Children's Film Fund BUSH CHRISTMAS than Co-producer Ealing's ponderous Colonial epics of the day, like EUREKA STOCKADE or THE OVERLANDERS. Director Michael Gordon is proficient rather than inspired, bringing up a light on Parrtett's face as she spots the piano, and the production only occasionally gets away from the expatriot crew - shot of the kids jiggling against a studio truck cabin to suggest driving, the pub verandah singer out of synch with his track. Leading local cameraman George Heath comes off best, making his filter effects emphasise the striking cloudscapes behind bush and mine scenics, though we remain aware of the use of lighting units.
The film is a fictionalised (we are told at the start) account of the childhood of then-famous concert pianist Eileen Joyce, conveniently giving us a local with some star value, a setting that is exotic to world audiences and a chance to lay on lots of classical music, which veteran Ernest Irving manages to use to underpin some of the location action quite effectively.
Young Suzanne Parrett shows a promise, that was sadly never realised, as the child of itinerant parents Muriet Steinbeck and Nigel Love. She encounters a swagman who is (of course) also an artist ("Swaggies are real people who live working about the country"). Overnight she masters the harmonica he gives her, starting her off on her musical ambitions where she (of course) shows exceptional talent. A shift to Kalgoorlie generates some bland drama. Mum Steinbeck has to live in a tent and cook with a kerosene Primus stove and Dad Lovell has to abandon his get rich schemes on a fellow no-hoper's mining leases and come on wearing a tie "I can work for a boss as well as the next man." Young Eileen/Susannne finds herself doing harmonica numbers and playing the battered piano in the boozer to get the sixpence the nun music teacher demands for lessons and buy scores from the snotty music store owner. This escalates to a campaign, where the scrubbed-up miners run a coins in the tin campaign to raise the expenses of the trip to the comic city audition, which (she of) course aces.
We are then treated to a montage of programs to grown Eileen's International and Australian concerts, climaxed by an uncharacteristically spectacular finale drawing back from her playing the packed Albert Hall's Steinway.
All this does finally gets to be quite endearing, coming closer to the Children's Film Fund BUSH CHRISTMAS than Co-producer Ealing's ponderous Colonial epics of the day, like EUREKA STOCKADE or THE OVERLANDERS. Director Michael Gordon is proficient rather than inspired, bringing up a light on Parrtett's face as she spots the piano, and the production only occasionally gets away from the expatriot crew - shot of the kids jiggling against a studio truck cabin to suggest driving, the pub verandah singer out of synch with his track. Leading local cameraman George Heath comes off best, making his filter effects emphasise the striking cloudscapes behind bush and mine scenics, though we remain aware of the use of lighting units.