Dig A Million, Make A Million
Clip 1: The discovery
1 min 45 sec
Taken from the TV program Dig A Million, Make A Million (1968)
Original title classification G – this clip chosen to be G
Availability of the complete title
Curator’s clip description
Pastoralist and prospector Lang Hancock retraces his route by air and on foot to explain how he made his great discovery of a mountain of iron ore at Mount Tom Price in Western Australia.
Curator’s notes
Mount Tom Price in the Hamersley Range is one of the most remote places on earth. We’re taken on an aeroplane ride by Lang Hancock, the owner of vast square miles of this arid country, as he recalls the day he flew low over the Turner River with late afternoon sun lighting up the oxidised iron ore along the range. Lang Hancock was the stuff of legend and very much a pioneer of Western Australia. He died in 1983 a fabulously rich man. He had made shrewd judgements about the value of his find and, as a tough businessman and negotiator, he dealt with both the multinational miners and the federal and state governments of Australia to maximise his position.
Tom Haydon’s program is beautifully filmed with superb shots of the Pilbara region of Western Australia contrasted with the headquarters of the mining giants in London and Tokyo. The documentary is now rather dated in style, although the structure is excellent with a well-crafted script narrated by Richard Oxenburgh. He was an ABC journalist, working in both current affairs as a presenter of Four Corners (2008) and for the documentary unit as an interviewer for Chequerboard (1975), before leaving the ABC to work as an independent producer in Western Australia and Hong Kong.
Janet Bell, curator
