Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Queensland sugarcane cutters Roo and Barney spend the off season in Sydney each year, seeing their girlfriends. For sixteen years Roo has spent the summer with barmaid Olive, bringing her a kewpie doll, while Barney romances Nancy. In the seventeenth year, Barney arrives to find that Nancy has married; however Olive has arranged a replacement, manicurist Pearl. Roo loses his place as head of the cane cutting team to a younger man, Dowd. Dowd falls for Bubba, who has grown up with the cane cutters.