n this high-quality ochre. The traditional custodians of the mine supervised access to the closely-guarded site. Men designated to collect the pigment were required to leave their companions at a nominated place and travel the last ten miles without food, water or weapons. They dug out the ochre, dried and formed it into large cakes for the journey home. So significant was red ochre to indigenous Australians that the colour red has been described as the basis of their spiritual beliefs. In the words of a local station owner who advocated for their right to continue to control the mine, red was “as important to Aboriginal Australians as the Bible is to Christians”. 
Kangaroo’s infamous water trough scene, described by critic Deb Verhoeven as the most astonishingly racist in the history of Australian cinema, appears around two thirds of the way through Kangaroo.  At the height of the drought, two groups converge on the station’s water trough. Hordes of cattle appear around a bend in the road. From the other direction, a group of Aboriginal people emerge. An elder steps forward and asks permission to use the trough. They will pray for rain in return for a drink. In this confrontation, and indeed throughout Kangaroo, the white and black actors are mostly shown in separate shots. As Patrick Keating observes in his history of Hollywood lighting, Technicolor boasted of the their three-strip colour stock’s ability to capture a wide range of skin tones. “Filmmakers relied on exotic subject matter to put the technology’s skills on display, turning racial diversity into pictorial spectacle”. 
The water-trough scene in Kangaroo is a long way from any historical reality. When white settlers in this area cleared the land for grazing sheep, indigenous people were dispossessed of the country to which they had been connected for more than forty thousand years. Soaks were valuable sources of water and sites of major ceremonies. In response to the elder’s request, Dell (Maureen O’Hara) intervenes. (Incidentally, O’Hara was cast, in part, due to her red hair, considered a major plus for a Technicolor heroine). Harry Kleiner’s screenplay describes the Aborigines in this scene as “grotesquely streaked with ochre”.  In Kangaroo’s fictional world red ochre, a pigment widely used by a culture with the longest ongoing artistic tradition on earth, was associated with the grotesque. But then, cultural sensitivity was not high on the agenda. Despite well-informed local advisors, the Kangaroo script described didgeridoos as long wooden trumpets. Ultimately, despite a relentless publicity campaign, Kangaroo was dismissed by critics and spurned by audiences. The Australian High Commissioner in London reportedly requested that the subtitle ‘Australian Story’ be removed.
Before Jedda made it to the screen in 1955, there was another contender for the title of Australia’s first ‘natural colour feature’. In this instance, production swiftly followed the press announcement because it documented a real event. The Queen in Australia(1954), produced by the Commonwealth Film Unit, portrayed a youthful Queen Elizabeth on her first visit to the Antipodes. The filmmakers assembled a roll-call of local arts and technical talent and trained their lenses and microphones on Her Majesty as she travelled the length and breadth of the country. Prime Minister Robert Menzies, an ardent monarchist and home-movie enthusiast, committed the Commonwealth Film Unit to completing the film by April only two months after the Royal visit. This ambitious schedule placed the production under enormous pressure. Colour film of the era was especially sensitive to heat and, as with Kangaroo, the logistical challenges were considerable. Since there were still no facilities for processing 35 mm. colour footage in Australia, the exposed colour negative would be placed in refrigerated containers ready to travel overseas.  The Queen in Australia was shot utilising the Italian-invented Ferrania Color film system with footage flown to Denham Laboratories in London for processing, editing and post