Product Description

With its unforgettably heroic story, its stunning cinematography, and acting performances that are uniformly excellent, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is one thrilling adventure you won't want to miss. Set during the 1880's, when the Australian frontier was as wild and dangerous as the American West, the film follows the exploits of a handsome youth (Tom Burlinson) who sets out to tame a wild herd of horses. Taking on a challenge many men had attempted before him, he rides deep into the treacherous and untamed wilderness of his native timberlands where boys become men fast - or die trying. Featuring Kirk Douglas in a remakable dual role and highlighted by a climactic chase involving 40 horsemen and 90 wild stallioins thundering across snow-covered peaks, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is destined to become a legendary film!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1457 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-05-28
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 102 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
A conventional boy-and-his-horse story set against the red rocks of remote Australian mountains. (If there's a wide-screen edition, grab it. The scenery is one of the movie's strongest features.) Tom Burlinson is Jim Craig, a young man left stranded after his father's death who is struggling to save the family farm. He proves his manhood during a hair-raising hunt over the wooded slopes in search of an escaped stallion. The great, grizzled, Australian character actor Jack Thompson (the idealistic lawyer in Breaker Morant) is the tough, older horseman who takes the lad under his wing. The director, George Miller (not to be confused with the action-master who made the Mad Max films) allows costar Kirk Douglas to mug and grimace and prance far too much in a duel role as a pair of lovable old coots who hate each other's guts. Luckily, one of the coots has a handsome daughter (Sigrid Thornton, an Elizabeth McGovern-type with grit), who also has a way with horses. So it isn't all rocks and pine trees. --David Chute

Customer Reviews

Wild Horses
The rural grazing life in the Snowy Mountains has hardly changed since Banjo Paterson traveled the high country and wrote his famous "Man from Snowy River" poem. His poetry is an authentic voice of a frontier society in which song and campfire recitation were much appreciated entertainment.

"And the Snowy River riders on the mountains make their home,
Where the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many horsemen since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."

Andrew Barton Paterson was born in New South Wales and was the son of a Scottish immigrant. Paterson was a poet, journalist, lawyer, jockey, soldier, farmer and one of the best-loved figures of Australian literature. His poem is the basis for this gorgeous movie about the treacherous terrain and bands of wild, stampeding horses. He also wrote Waltzing Matilda, which is lovingly woven into the soundtrack.

The Man from Snowy River Movie tells a more in depth story of a cattle baron Mr. Harrison (Jessica's father) who has had a long quarrel with his brother Spur. Kirk Douglas plays both roles. When one brother finds his fortune, the second goes searching for gold. This is a story based on a time when families tended their sheep and cattle. Ghost towns from the gold rush still haunt the landscape.

Set against the untamed Australian Outback, a love story unfolds between Jessica Harrison ( Sigrid Thornton) and Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson). Jim seems to have a way with horses and Jessica is a bit of a brash filly herself.

She has her own ideas regarding a woman's choices in life and choosing the path she will take in her own career. She defies her father and runs off to find Jim. Her anger towards Jim over a horse riding accident is like a summer storm that quickly disappears once she experiences the excitement of forbidden love.

Her father, Mr. Harrison, has not yet learned that there is a beautiful place inside each person where we are either nurtured or destroyed. He seems emotionally destructive and Jessica rebels because he won't let her follow any of her dreams. He seeks to trap her in his own wishes and thinks she should settle down into a domestic lifestyle.

Jim and Jessica are soul mates with hearts as wild as the horses running free through the snow. While at first they fight their mutual attraction, Jessica seems clearer in her thinking after she almost dies and realizes there are just some things in life worth fighting for.

Equestrian Heaven with an impressive conclusion! You must see this movie once in your life if you love horses. The wide-screen edition is highly recommended!

~The Rebecca Review

Twenty years later, this movie is still an Aussie classic
I remember seeing this with my girlfriends in the theatre, and then buying my first vcr so I could watch this film everyday. The cinematography is gorgeous. The music is haunting and beautiful. Tom Burlinson and Sigrid Thornton make a great romantic team, and Jack Thompson is wonderful as Clancy. All of the actors fit their roles except for Kirk Douglas. It really shows that a "big name star" had to be used to get this picture made. Kirk Douglas insisted on re-writing many of his lines, and refused to step off his horse with the entire cast at the end of the movie in homage to The Man From Snowy River. The entire end scene had to be re-written. Little wonder that Brian Dennehey was cast in the role in the sequel. Enjoy both the original and the sequel. And be sure to get the soundtracks. Bruce Rowland created two of the best movie scores you will ever hear.

A Classic.
The Man From Snowy River is an all-time favorite movie of mine. Horses! Gorgeous Australian scenery! Men with accents!

But eye candy aside, it's an excellent movie in its own right, with no weak points except, very rarely, instances of mediocre cinematography. Tom Burlinson carries the character of Jim Craig perfectly, Sigrid Thornton is marvelous as Jessica Harrisson, and for years I had absolutely no idea that Harrisson and Spur were both played by Kirk Douglas.

Beautiful scenery, beautiful acting, but both are merely dressing on an equally beautifully story that flows seamlessly from beginning to end.I would praise it more highly if I could, but the highest praise I can think to give the movie is that, while I am watching it, I do not question for a moment that it is real--soundtrack notwithstanding, because the soundtrack is so perfectly suited to the movie, heroic brass and romantic piano and strings.

You don't have to be a horse fanatic to love this movie, even though it is the second-best horse movie of all time, surpassed only by its sequel, Return to Snowy River.