AustLit

Another of Horace Bent's popular burlesques, Robbery Over Arms sends up the famous Australian novel by Rolf Boldrewood and the dramatic version recently staged by Alfred Dampier. The 1891 production was advertised as being produced 'by arrangement with Rough Bolder(Colling)Wood' (Age 21 February 1891, p.12).

Set in the 1850s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of two brothers who follow their father's footsteps into a life of bushranging under the influence of the charismatic Captain Starlight. Told from the perspective of Dick Marston, the narrative sees him and his brother Jim set out on a series of escapades that include theft and robbery under arms. The story also explores the conflicting emotions that Jim experiences as his life leads him further away from his mother and sister and from the life and love that he might have otherwise have experienced.

In adapting Robbery Under Arms into a feature film, Kenneth Brampton incorporates the major threads of the original story into approximately 60 minutes of storytelling time. The narrative follows the two Marsden brothers through their adventures with the gentlemanly bushranger Captain Starlight, their romance with local girls, their life on the goldfields, and their eventual capture by the police after Starlight is shot. The story differs in the end, however, by having both brothers emerge from years in prison to start new lives with their patiently waiting sweethearts, whereas Boldrewood's novel sees Jim killed by the police.

An adaptation of Rolf Boldrewood's novel for radio, by British script-writer Peter Creswell.

A BBC radio production of Rolf Boldrewood's 1882 novel, Robbery Under Arms was the first work completed for the BBC by Australian radio writer Rex Rienits after his move to the UK in 1949.

Set in the late 1800s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of bushranger Captain Starlight, told from the perspective of young Dick Marsden. Dick and his brother Jim follow their father's footsteps, on the wrong side of the law. After they succumb to the impetuosity of a tossed coin and participate in the theft and subsequent sale of fifteen hundred head of cattle, the pair team up with the mysterious Starlight (the renegade son of a British noble family), and evolve from petty criminals to outlawed bushrangers, terrorising the countryside, often in partnership with their father Ben and Starlight's Aboriginal offsider Warrigal. Throughout this story, the brothers find themselves at odds with both their mother and sister and with the lives they could have otherwise led.

An adaptation of Robbery Under Arms, released as both a feature film and a mini-series: this is the latter version.