Captain Thunderbolt

Captain Thunderbolt is a 1953 Australian action film from director Cecil Holmes about the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt. It was one of the few all-Australian films of the 1950s. Synopsis Fred Ward is imprisoned for horse stealing. He escapes from Cockatoo Island and under the name of Captain Thunderbolt becomes a bushranger in the New England region, working with his friend and fellow escapee Alan Blake. Blake has a romantic involvement with a "half-caste" (sic) girl Maggie that equally infringes the norms of the day. Thunderbolt is tracked by the vengeful Trooper Mannix. After gunfights with the bushranger at a dance, then at a rocky outcrop, Mannix discovers that he has killed Alan Blake instead. Mannix passes off Blake's body as Thunderbolt, concealing the bushranger's escape. The legend grows that Thunderbolt did not die. Cast Grant Taylor as Captain Thunderbolt Charles Tingwell as Alan Blake Rosemary Miller as Joan Harp McGuire as Trooper Mannix John Fegan as Sergeant Dalton Jean Blue as Mrs Ward John Fernside as Colonel Loretta Boutmy as Maggie Ronald Whelan as Hogstone Charles Tasman as Colonial Secretary Harvey Adams as parliamentarian Patricia Hill as Belle John Brunskill as Judge