Photo of Mel Gibson at the premiere of Air America...
English: Mel Gibson at the Cannes film festival
Frank (Frank Sinatra)"Gallipoli" released in 1981 directed by Peter Weir stars Australian actors Mark Lee as Archy and Mel Gibson as Frank. The movie starts in the outback of Western Australia and progresses to Eygpt and finally to the beaches of Gallipoli in Turkey at the beginning of World War I. The film begins in 1915 with two friends Archy and Frank who almost starve in the desolate outback. In search of something better, Archy, a promising young track star, leaves his home in Perth and his Olympic running career to join in on the greatest adventure and sign up for the Lighthorsemen a division in the ANZACs division of Australian soldiers. He convinces Frank, another runner, to join the fight. They meet up during training in Eygpt and Frank joins Archys battalion and they race around and have more fun than they ever had in the outback. The Great War leads them to the bloody battlefields of Gallipoli. Gallipoli is a peninsula in the Dardanelles in Turkey that was attacked by a force of French, British, and Australian and New Zealand Forces. In order to cause a distraction for the British landing, the British general sends the ANZACs "over the top" and across the dead man's land of the trenches. Archy is one of the unfortunate men on the front line. Meanwhile Frank is relaying the messages from the generals, and as he is running to tell the troops and the British general that the strike has been called off, the radio phone is used to tell the men to charge and the Movie ends as Archy is shot running.
The movie was an epic tale of friendship and the futility of war and I was very attached to the simple long plot. It was an anti-war movie,