Australia Is Like This
1945 film
Australia is Like This is a 1945 documentary about the experiences of two American soldiers in Australia during World War II until they leave for battle. It takes the form of a letter written by one of the soldiers to his family in America describing Australia.
It was also known as A Letter from Australia.
The film was made for Australia and the United States, but was not released in Australia.
Plot
The film is told in the form of a letter written by an American soldier and his friend on leave in Sydney. They leave a troopship and see the sights, encounter 'wrong side' traffic, and meet two Australian soldiers on leave who abandon their girlfriends to buy the Americans a beer. The Americans go to a Red Cross canteen and meet a waitress whose brother is in New Guinea. They take her to the zoo and accept a dinner invitation to her house. The troops then head north.
Cast
John McCallum as Australian soldier
Muriel Steinbeck as mother
Grant Taylor as Australian soldier
Patricia Firman as waitress
John Nugent Hayward
Production
The film was one of a series of shorts made by Australia's Department of the Interior, others including Island Target.
“Australia Is Like This” enters the record as 1945 film. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Australia, Like and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Australia Is Like This” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Australia, Like and film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15964458. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Australia Is Like This” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.