The Man From Snowy River Story

Like all films, The Man from Snowy River began with an idea.
But this film was different...

The idea for the film preceded the actual story line and both elements were sewn together seamlessly by Producer, Geoff Burrows. The concept was born out of a love for hard riding, horses and the stunning beauty of the remote Victorian High Country. Geoff developed a friendship with legendary High Country cattle family, the Lovicks, who have produced several generations of High Country horsemen. He rode with them on cattle musters, travelling miles and miles through the trackless mountains and, like everyone who visits that part of Australia, he fell in love with what he saw.

Geoff was determined to make a film of this unknown corner of Australia. He collaborated with an old friend, director George Miller and the Lovicks and made a documentary entitled, “High Country” for the Victorian Tourism Commission.

Young Charlie

During the nights on the trail, Geoff, George and the Lovicks talked about making a feature film in the mountains. What sort of story, they wondered, would encompass all the elements they had seen on their ride?

It was as if the answer had been waiting there in the mountains for The Man from Snowy River. The mountain cattlemen of today feel an empathy with Banjo Paterson, Australia’s great bush ballad writer. Nearly a hundred years later the truth inherent in Banjo’s epic is vindicated in the daily lives of the mountain men, their association with horses and familiarity with nature in the Victorian High Country.

The Lovicks’ Involvement in “The Man from Snowy River”

Charlie with his horse

Charlie Lovick — Master of Horse

The Lovick family has been riding the Great Divide since the 1860’s. There could have been no greater noted rider than Charlie Lovick to oversee the horsemanship on location.

Without the Lovick family The Man from Snowy River would never have been the incredibly authentic film that it is. Jack and Charlie provided the horses and found the men to ride them. They told the film crew what looked right and what looked wrong and they took them to the most beautiful parts of the Victorian High Country.

Charlie grins as he remembers Tom Burlinson, who plays ‘The Man’, getting on a horse for the first time.

“He’d had a few lessons in Sydney and rode like he had a broomstick up his bum! We had to beat that out of him for a start. I told him he had to forget everything he had been taught at riding school. He used my own horse, Denny and I reckon Tom did a pretty good job handling him. Denny was as strong a willed buckskin as you ever could meet.”

The entire Lovick family was involved in The Man From Snowy River. Glenda was 2nd Unit Coordinator in the first film. Charlie and Glenda’s children appeared in both films along with Craig and Wayne who also had a speaking part in the second movie.

On completion of The Man from Snowy River, the producers sought to reflect the scale of Charlie’s contribution by bestowing upon him a special screen credit. There is nothing more important to a professional film maker than the nature and placement of this credit.

Charlie was given the title ‘Master of Horse’ which was the very first to run after the actor credits at the end of the film. Both the credit and its placement were without precedence in the Australian film industry. But then again, so was Charlie Lovick.

Today, the movie and the heritage of the hardy mountain horse lives on through people like the Lovicks who still call the magnificent Victorian High Country their home.