Product Description

Netherlands released, PAL/Region 2 DVD:it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Mono ),Dutch ( Subtitles ),SPECIAL FEATURES: Interactive Menu,SYNOPSIS: Palestine, 1917. The British advance has been stopped by the Turkish line running from Gaza to Beersheba. The latest attack on Gaza has failed. The attacking forces included a regiment of Australian mounted infantry, the Light Horse... Lighthorseman Frank is wounded in a skirmish with Bedouin. He is replaced by a young soldier, Dave, who proves to be a crack shot, but reluctant to fire at the enemy. Dave proves himself during a German biplane attack. Recuperating in hospital, he meets a sympathetic nurse, Anne... The regiment is called upon for a bold flanking attack on Beersheba. But how do you convince the Turks the main attack will come at Gaza? And how do you attack across a desert without water? SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Australian Film Institute,

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111376 in DVD
• Formats: Import, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 115 minutes

Features

• THIS DVD WILL NOT WORK ON STANDARD US DVD PLAYER

Customer Reviews

Buy this movie!
I've owned two versions of this DVD. One, produced in China, will work on a standard American DVD player without modification. The other, produced in Australia, requires a little tweaking of the DVD player due to the format, PAL instead of NTSC, and DVD region. The Dutch version should be similar to the Australian one.

Fortunately most DVD players are produced for multiple markets and easily convert between regions and format. The settings aren't in the manual, but are readily available on the Internet. Make sure your DVD player has this capability, though, before buying a foreign DVD and finding it won't work on your system.

The Lighthorsemen is a fictionalized account of the 1917 Battle of Beersheba in which Australian mounted infantry, "Lighthorsemen", used as cavalry succeeded in getting under the Turkish guns and capturing the wells of Beersheba, thus turning the tide of the war in Palestine and enabling Gen. Allenby to meet his goal of capturing Jerusalem by Christmas. The pacing at first seems a little slow, but the production quality and acting are excellent, and the final cavalry charge alone is worth the price of the DVD. Scenes from the movie were used in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but inexplicably The Lighthorsemen was never released in the U.S.

History buffs will spot a number of interesting historical characters. These include:

Richard Meinertzhagen, a controversial British intelligence officer and amateur ornithologist, once described by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) as "a strategist, a geographer, and a silent laughing masterful man; who took as blithe a pleasure in deceiving his enemy (or his friend) by some unscrupulous jest, as in spattering the brains of a cornered mob of Germans one by one with his African knob-kerri." Meinertzhagen mislead the Turco-German force into believing the British attack would center on Gaza, not Beersheba. Part of this deception involved arranging for a satchel of documents to be "captured" by the Turks, an episode portrayed in the movie.

Baron Kress von Kressenstein defeated the British in the first two battles for Gaza, thus earning the Pour le Merite. One of the German officers in command of the Ottoman Army during the war, Kressenstein was described as "the inspiration and brain of the Turks in Palestine for the first three years of the war" by military historian and theoretician Liddell Hart.

Those interested in the events and people portrayed in this movie will find accurate information in the Wikipedia and on several Australian websites.

Great war film
This is one of the best war movies from WW1. Historically very accurate, it has my favorite components of horses and war action. This movie centers on the true story of the Australian Light Horse, and their actions in the Middle East [Gaza] fighting the Turkish Army. It has a good character story, and the viewer gets involved with the film. Heroic men with the will to win. First rate.

IMPORTANT: Unavailable in USA video format, you must have a "region-free" DVD player for this DVD to work.