{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}} {{Infobox film | name = Sunstruck | image = File:Sunstruck_DVD_cover_(lo_res).jpg | caption = DVD cover | director = James Gilbert | producer = James Grafton<br>Jack Neary | writer = Stan Mars | based_on = | starring = Harry Secombe | music = Peter Knight | cinematography = Brian West | editing = Anthony Buckley<br>Barry Peters | studio = Immigrant Productions | distributor = British Empire Films | released = {{Film date|1972|11|18|df=yes}} | runtime = 92 mins | country = Australia<br>United Kingdom | language = English | budget = A$400,000<ref name="pike">Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p267</ref> | gross = }} '''''Sunstruck''''' '''('''also known as '''''Education of Stanley Evans'')''' is a 1972 British-Australian comedy film directed by James Gilbert and starring Harry Secombe, Maggie Fitzgibbon and John Meillon.<ref name="BFIsearch">{{Cite web |title=Sunstruck |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150050386 |access-date=14 October 2025 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=BFI {{!}} Film & TV Database {{!}} Sunstruck (1988) |url=http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/52819 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090116055940/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/52819 |archive-date=2009-01-16 |access-date=2025-10-14 |website=ftvdb.bfi.org.uk |language=en}}</ref> It was written by Stan Mars.

==Plot== Stanley Evans, a Welsh schoolteacher, is very proud of the choir that he's formed with his pupils. But when the girl of his dreams — a new gym teacher — marries a fellow teacher, he decides to leave and migrate to Australia for a better life 'in the sun'.

From Sydney, he is assigned to a small school in the dead-end town of Kookaburra Springs, living in a small room over the local hotel run by Sal and Mick. All the kids live in farms throughout the district.

Homesick, and constantly playing recordings of his original school choir, he decides to form a choir of his new pupils, who haven't been taking him seriously and play pranks on him.

Mick secretly decides that the kids should enter a schools choir competition in Sydney, and when the application is accepted, Stan has only a few weeks left to train the group. They travel by bus to Sydney accompanied by Shirley, a feisty young lady who has taken a shine to Stan. But Shirley's brother doesn't want his sister involved with 'a fat little Welsh Pom', and makes clear his feelings to Stan before they leave.

The choir win a special commendation.

On his return, Stan marries Shirley.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Readle |first=Eric |title=History and heartburn: the saga of Australian film, 1896–1978. |publisher=Associated University Presses |year=1981 |isbn=978-0063120334 |pages=184}}</ref>

==Cast== * Harry Secombe as Stanley Evans (final film role) * Maggie Fitzgibbon as Shirley Marshall * John Meillon as Mick Cassidy * Peter Whittle as Pete Marshall * Dennis Jordan as Steve Cassidy * Dawn Lake as Sal Cassidy * Bobby Limb as Bill * Norm Erskine as Norm * Jack Allen as Banjo * Roger Cox as Ben * Tommy Mack as Gunboat *Derek Nimmo *Stuart Wagstaff as announcer *Benita Collings as Alice

==Production== The film was inspired by a poster used by the New South Wales government to attract teachers from Britain, where a teacher wearing swimmers and an academic board stands on Bondi Beach. It was designed as a vehicle for Harry Secombe and was shot near Parkes in New South Wales from January 1972. The budget mostly came from United States and British sources, with $100,000 from the Australian Film Development Corporation.<ref name="pike"/><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article101753894 |title=Dusty bush setting for former Goon's film |newspaper=The Canberra Times |date=22 January 1972 |accessdate=10 December 2013 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

The pupils seen acting at choir practice in the early part of the film were from Afon Taf High School in Troedyrhiw. The choir recorded the entire choral soundtrack at the school and it was used in both the Welsh and Australian sequences. The beginning of the film used locations in two Welsh mining villages; Treharris and Trelewis near Merthyr Tydfil. The name of the school is Webster Street School, Treharris which has since been demolished for housing.{{Citation needed|date=October 2025}}

==Reception== The film did not perform particularly well commercially or critically.<ref name="pike"/>

Murray Noble wrote in ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'': "A crude and sentimental comedy made mostly at the expense of the Australians who, besides speaking an impenetrable slang of their own, are stereotyped as brainless, soulless, cultureless and essentially humourless. Harry Secombe wallows in his contrasting Welshness, and the film is only partially redeemed by Maggie Fitzgibbon's convincing performance as his outback sweetheart, a lady who vents the hostility she feels towards her bossy brother Pete by alternately using him and his beer supplies as targets in her shooting practice."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1973 |title=Sunstruck |volume=40 |issue=468 |pages=59 |id={{ProQuest|1305829232}} |magazine=The Monthly Film Bulletin}}</ref>

In ''The Radio Times Guide to Films'' Dave Aldridge gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "This star vehicle for singer and comedian Harry Secombe was made Down Under back in the days when the Welsh warbler used to summer there. Daft and dated, even at the time, the slight tale has Secombe playing a dimwit Welsh schoolteacher who emigrates to the Aussie outback. The simple-minded humour derives from his patent unsuitability for the new way of life. Thankfully, the sort of film they don't make any more."<ref>{{Cite book |title=Radio Times Guide to Films |publisher=Immediate Media Company |year=2017 |isbn=9780992936440 |edition=18th |location=London |pages=895}}</ref>

Leslie Halliwell wrote "Simple minded, uninspired, predictable family comedy for star fans."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Halliwell |first=Leslie |title=Halliwell's Film Guide |publisher=Paladin |year=1989 |isbn=0586088946 |edition=7th |location=London |pages=979}}</ref>

==References== <references/>

==External links== *{{IMDb title|0069330}} *{{Rotten Tomatoes|sunstruck_1972}} *[http://aso.gov.au/titles/features/sunstruck/ ''Sunstruck''] at Australian Screen Online *''[https://web.archive.org/web/20161008031632/https://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/sunstruck Sunstruck]'' at Oz Movies (archived from the [http://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/sunstruck original] on 8 Oct 2016)

Category:1972 films Category:Australian comedy films Category:1972 comedy films Category:Films about educators Category:British comedy films Category:Films set in New South Wales Category:1972 English-language films Category:1972 British films Category:English-language comedy films