Avengers of the Reef is a 1973 Australian children's film directed by Chris McCullugh and starring Simon Drake.

Avengers of the Reef
Directed byChris McCullugh
Written byAnne Brooksbank
Produced byNoel Ferrier
StarringSimon Drake
CinematographyPeter James
Edited byTim Wellburn
Music byJohn Sangster
Production
company
Timon Productions
Distributed byRoadshow
Release date
  • 21 October 1973 (1973-10-21)
Running time
84 mins
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$100,000[1]
Box officeA$27,000 (Australia)[2]

Plot

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Scientist Bill Stewart goes to Fiji with his son Tim to investigate the appearance of the crown-of-thorns starfish in the reefs off the island. It transpires that a mining syndicate set up by Updike is deliberately seeding the reefs with the starfish to enable them to mine the reef area. Updike hires an assassin, Kemp, to kill Stewart. He fails, but Tim thinks he has succeeded and runs away to an island village pursued by Kemp. Tim makes friends with a Fijian boy, Sai, and is eventually reunited with his father.

Cast

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Production

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The film was jointly financed by the actor-producer Noel Ferrier and the Australian Film Development Corporation. Shooting began in Fiji in September 1972, mainly on the island of Taveuni. Filming was delayed by several weeks because of a major cyclone.[1]

Awards

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Anne Brooksbank won an Australian Writers Guild Award for her screenplay.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p273
  2. ^ "Australian Films At the Australian Box office" (PDF). Film Victoria. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 February 2014. Retrieved 28 September 2012.
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