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The epic 1927 Australian film For the Term of His Natural Life is set on the "Down Under" penal colony of Vandeman's Island. The time is 1827, long before Queen Victoria abolished this hell-on-earth isle. Taking the blame for a murder to save the reputation of his high-born mother, a young man (Arthur McLaglen) is shipped off to Vandeman's, where he stoically accepts the worst that life has to offer at the hands of his sadistic jailers. Even under these trying circumstances, the hero manages to fall in love with the warden's daughter (Eva Novak), and she with him. It takes a spectacular escape attempt and an even more spectacular shipwreck before the boy's name is cleared and his marriage to the girl can come off. Long regarded as the single most important Australian silent production, For the Term of His Natural Life was poorly preserved and today exists only in fragments. A TV-miniseries version of the same story was produced in 1982.