THERE was a golden age of Australian films when their brilliance flashed across international screens like Halley's comet. During that period, this journalist interviewed a number of film personalities, producers and directors at studios there and had an opportunity to learn about the industry up close and personal.

"What's happened?" I asked an Australian executive I met on an Alaska cruise last year. "There was a period of so many standout films that won major awards and international acclaim."

"Funding dried up" was his lament.

Perhaps we should look at them in chronological order of their release, starting with Ned Kelly, because so much of Australia's modern heritage involves its convict past.

Rolling Stone Mick Jagger played the legendary Australian outlaw and folk hero likened to America's Jesse James and England's Robin Hood. Like many early Australian settlers, Ned's father was deported there in the 1800s from Ireland for stealing two pigs from a local squire.

Like other convict settlers, his family needed to be tough not only to survive hardships in the rugged Outback, but tyranny and corruption of authorities who persecuted those with convict backgrounds. Today many of their crimes would be considered misdemeanours.

Ned himself served three years at hard labour when barely 17. The charge was horse-stealing, to which he pleaded not guilty. His short-lived career of bush-ranging coincided with his mother's imprisonment on a trumped-up charge for attempted murder of a constable. He tried to not only raise money for her defence, but worked to declare his adopted country an Irish Republic as well.

In scouting locations, director Tony Richardson found Kelly's original territory too cultivated. Instead, he discovered the exact settings needed just miles from Canberra in districts of Braidwood, Queanbeyan and Bungendore.

On several occasions, a ballad singer chronicles Kelly's life and times as cameras follow his horseback travels across incredible landscapes . . . an almost ghostly forest of white gum trees . . . past herds of wild horses, and assorted camera-filling panoramas.

You're sure to enjoy it more than Ned Kelly who spent the final days of his young life hunted as a marked man. The final siege of Glenrowan, where Ned appears in his famous forged armour, was shot at Captain's Falt, a small town near Queanbeyan.

The hanging sequence was filmed on the actual site in Melbourne's Penbridge Gaol where the setting remains almost unchanged since his death in 1880.

Imagine a land so enormous and underpopulated that travellers could roam for weeks without encountering any sign of civilisation. That is exactly what happens in Twentieth Century Fox's Walkabout.

A father plagued by unending noise and concrete chaos of his hated urban existence in Sydney takes his own life in the desert, leaving a 14-year-old daughter and son, six, stranded and helplessly lost.

LUCKILY, they encounter an Aborigine boy who teaches them how to survive rigours of life in isolated bush country. Result is, not only a revealing travelogue exploring a vast, genuine frontier, but an introduction to Aborigine culture and a lesson in man's humanity and inhumanity to each other.

The story is based on a classic novel, which to Australians is the equivalent of Swiss Family Robinson. Its title is derived from the Aborigines' tribal ritual requiring every teenage male to journey alone for months in the wilderness foraging for food with a wooden spear.

Only the strongest survive, proving they are fit for adulthood . . . the weak never return. The native boy in the film is on just such a walkabout when he encounters the sophisticated city children.

Casting presented more than usual complications. Director Nicholas Roig said: "Obviously there are no Aborigines listed with central casting. Abos are very shy, entirely dependent on nature and constantly on the move seeking water and game."

After combing reservations, he discovered David Gumpilil in a small mission settlement at Manninggrieda. David had actually seen a few movies in his two years at the mission, knew a little English and was an expert tribal dancer. Location filming showing a completely authentic lifestyle took six months and covered 12,000 miles journeying through the great Outback. Many locations were so remote that few Australians had visited them and bush pilots often flew actors in along with tents and provisions.

Unlike "sportsmen" shown later in the film who leave carcasses to rot, the Aborigine kills only what is necessary for his survival and is careful not to waste precious resources.

Cameras capture the bright red desert surrounding Alice Springs and challenging Flinders mountain range which the children attempt to cross. Landscapes vary from dense tropical palm groves to charred hills moonlike in their starkness.

Even the quandong tree is featured. Considered among the world's rarest form of vegetation, it bears an edible bright red fruit which helps sustain the children.

A totally different glimpse of lifestyles comes to the screen in My Brilliant Career. This remarkable film also does a standout job of showing the country's scenery and lifestyle so diverse and varied it's almost hard to fathom.

The heroine is not so gently pushed out of her family ranch in the bush because drought is causing severe economic hardship. She discovers another world at her affluent grandmother's home where everyone dresses for dinner and life is genteel, indeed. She is taught the lifestyle of a lady and introduced to some suitors from properly affluent backgrounds so she does not repeat her mother's "mistake" of marrying poor.

Almost every scene is like a sonnet singing out to the beauty of the place. Whether it's visiting a rustic sheep station, bush ranch or one of the country estates, the setting is dazzlingly eye-opening.

PROBABLY the reason the location impressed us so much was because they showed the Australia which has always fascinated us. No big cities . . . only isolated trading posts, miles and miles and miles. And although the film is set in 1897, many such unspoiled miles remain today. Mountains, meadows, soft gentle landscapes . . . then remote, wild, rugged rocky country all get their share of camera attention.

The heroine is determined to achieve a "brilliant career" in writing and resists grandmother's efforts to marry her off to the local man of property.

Many places like those shown on screen still exist and accept guests, as well. Ask your travel agent about them and the abundance of bush flights and four wheel drive adventures leading back of the beyond.

The Man From Snowy River is one of those titles with a sound of a western movie. But this tale is far different than any western. It takes viewers deep into Australia's high country, revealing scenery and frontier flavour hard for any traveller to resist.

Based on a classic Australian poem by "Banjo" Paterson, it chronicles a mountain boy's struggle to manhood after his father's death forces him to temporarily leave the high timber country he loves and work as a stockman at Kirk Douglas' ranch down in the "flats".

Except for Douglas, it is an all-Australian production. Voted most popular film at Montreal's Film Festival, it broke all box-office records in Australia for an Australian-made film.

Again, it was not an easy film to make. Many locations were remote and difficult for a film company to reach. The wild horse sequences, so realistic on screen, were extremely dangerous to film.

"We used 90 horses and 40 actual mountain men for the final ride-out scene," said producer Geoff Burrowes. "In Australia. we call these men 'crack' and they really know how to ride mountain horses."

Scenery is so exceptional that even Twentieth Century Fox's publicity man called us after a screening to ask: "Does Australia really have mountains that beautiful?" Absolutely. Those shown on screen are part of the Great Dividing Range in the state of Victoria. They maintain a wilderness flavour, yet are only a few hours northeast of Melbourne.

To retrace the film-makers' route, follow Maroondah Highway northeast of Melbourne to Mansfield, continuing on a Merrijig where it's possible to join mountain safaris onwards, visiting many of the actual settings where the film was made. Some of these are very rough and ready!

Three of the Lovick family were in the film. In fact, for almost a decade producer Burrowes spent almost all of his spare time exploring that area with mountain man Jack Lovick, preparing for this legendary tale of a horseman's life in the high country.

The Lovicks have been in this area for six generations, arriving in the early 1800s seeking gold. They've been conducting popular high-country adventure tours since 1967.

We've really barely scratched the surface. There are scary Picnic At Hanging Rock, A Town Like Alice and many more. But don't expect Alice Springs to retain the flavour Nevil Shute describes in his book or shown on screen in early films. Disappointingly, all I found left of that past was the old telegraph station.

4 Next week: Discovering well-kept secrets of Tasmania