Tag: The Breaking of the Drought 1920

46 Pre-War Aussie films & where to watch them

A Directory of 46 surviving Australian feature films 1906-1939

Above:  US director William Reed (seated) directing Eva Novak (left) in The Romance of Runnibede (1928). [Photo enlarged – see the original here] Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sam Hood Collection.

Frustrated about where to find classic Australian films?
* This is an attempt to list the surviving Australian feature films of the silent and early sound era that you can access – in most cases online – and in most cases at no cost.
* At the time of writing – December 2024, all the links are live. Films are listed in rough order of release from 1906 -1939.
Note – Some of these films are incomplete, and the list is not definitive, because there are some films that are known to have been preserved but have not been re-released. Garry Gillard’s list of all surviving films can be consulted at the Australian Cinema website.
* The National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) website and Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper’s 1980 book are referred to throughout.[1]Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford Uni Press/AFI

[Note – addresses struck out have been removed by the original poster]

1. The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906)

2. Thunderbolt (1910)

  • @ NFSA channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Another film on the popular topic of bushranging. It starred and was directed by the prolific John “Jack” F Gavin (1874-1938) – who churned out several other bushranger films in 1910-1911, before some state governments brought in a ban on such films. About 25 minutes of this film survives. See Garry Gillard’s synopsis of Gavin’s career here at The Australian Cinema website. Ina Bertrand’s article on his professional and personal partner, scriptwriter and actor Agnes Gavin (1872-1948), can be read at the Women Film Pioneers Project. [3]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 14-15

3. The Romantic Story of Margaret Catchpole (1911)

  • @ NFSA channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Directed by Raymond Longford (1878-1959), this was his second film as director – a familiar tale of the convict making good in Australia. Leading players included his professional and personal partner Lottie Lyell (1890-1925). About 25 minutes of the film survives. As NFSA curator Paul Byrnes notes, this film helped establish Lottie Lyell as a popular star. [4]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 30-32 Of passing interest, 1911 was the busiest year for Australia film production. It is telling that this is the only survivor.

4. The Hero of the Dardanelles (1915)

5. The Woman Suffers (1918)

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    Comment: “The woman suffers… while the man goes free.” A melodrama of seduction and betrayal, it was written and directed by Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell, who was also leading player. It was their thirteenth collaboration. Paul Byrne’s notes on the film can be read here – he describes it as one of the most significant Australian silent features. About two thirds of the film survives. It did good business – although it was banned in New South Wales after a six month run – for reasons never fully explained, but presumably through pressure from rival cinema interests.[5]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 102-103

6. The Sentimental Bloke (1919)

  • @ Classic Films channel on Youtube [Watch here]
  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]

    Comment: Raymond Longford’s film is regarded as a classic – one of the country’s greatest silents.[6]Pike & Cooper (1980) p121-122 Based on C.J. Dennis’ (1876-1938) verse novel, it starred popular stage comedian Arthur Tauchert (1877-1933) as the bloke and Lottie Lyell as Doreen. It was such a popular release in Australia and in Britain that it sparked several more films – Ginger Mick (1920) and The Dinkum Bloke (1923). The entire film survives.

7. The Man from Kangaroo (1920)

  • @ Pelciulas Mudas/ Silent cinema channel on Youtube [Watch here]
  • @ Classic Old Australian Films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]

    Comment: Producer EJ Carroll (1868-1931) brought a US team to Australia to make a series of films. The team included director Wilfred Lucas (1871-1940) and his wife, scriptwriter Beth Meredyth (1890-1969). Australian athlete Snowy Baker (1884-1953) starred as the boxer turned Minister, in this variation of a Western. Popular US actor, Brownie Vernon (1895-1948) took the leading female role.[7]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 126-128 Not surprisingly, the influence of Hollywood filmmaking, particularly of westerns, was commented on at the time. Graham Shirley’s notes on the film can be read here.

8. Robbery Under Arms (1920)

  • @ The VideoCellar channel on Youtube [Watch here]
  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]

    Comment: Directed by and starring Kenneth Brampton (1881-1942), this was based on Rolf Boldrewood‘s (1826-1915) 1880s novel, and made at a time when Bushranging films were still discouraged or simply banned. (Only a few years before the NSW Chief Secretary had rejected another script based on this book with the comment “I fail to see that any good…. will be served by reproducing… the bad old days.” [8]Pike & Cooper (1980) p135-6 ) Most of the film has survived.

9. On Our Selection (1920)

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    Comment: Raymond Longford’s film was his own interpretation of the Steele Rudd stories. Longford dispensed with the country bumpkin interpretations of Dad and Dave that had become popularised thanks to the stage versions and pointedly rejected the impression created “that our backblocks are populated with a race of unsophisticated idiots” – as he felt were portrayed in Beaumont Smith’s Hayseeds series.[9]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 132-134 Paul Byrnes article on the film is here.

10. The Breaking of the Drought (1920)

  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]
  • @ Pelciulas Mudas/ Silent cinema channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Director Franklyn Barrett’s (1873-1964) drought scenes were severe enough to worry politicians, who feared the depiction of a savage drought would harm the standing of the nation, if shown overseas. Adapted from a stage play and extolling the virtues of an honest living made in the country as opposed to the lazy life of the city, the film was moderately well received in Australia. Trilby Clarke (1896-1983) took the leading role as Marjorie. She left a year later to pursue opportunities in the US and UK. [10]Pike & Cooper (1980) p131 Paul Byrne’s notes on the film can be read here.

11. Silks and Saddles (1921)

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    Comment: Directed by John K Wells (1886-1953), who had arrived in Australia with Wilfred Lucas. US actor Brownie Vernon took the lead role in what appears to have been her final film. Pike & Cooper characterise this as a “racecourse melodrama,” and it was released in the US with the title Queen of the Turf. [11]Pike & Cooper (1980) p138-9 The entire film survives.

12. ‘Possum Paddock (1921)

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    Comment: Kate Howarde’s (1864-1939) Possum Paddock was her own film of her own popular play, making her the first woman to write and direct an Australian feature film. Ina Bertrand’s survey of her life can be read at the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and at the Women Film Pioneers project. Leading player Leslie Adrien was her daughter (real name Florence De Saxe, 1884-1951). About 40 minutes survives of this, Howarde’s only film.

13. The Life Story of John Lee, or The Man They Could Not Hang (1921)

  • @ The Vault channel on You Tube [Watch here]

    Comment: The true story of John Lee, a man who survived several execution attempts, apparently had a strong appeal to Australians, even though the events all took place in England. A popular play, it was made as a film three times in Australia – in 1912, in 1921 and 1934. Pike & Cooper explain that Director Arthur Sterry and Frederick Haldane toured the 1912 version accompanying it with a pious lecture. It was such a great success that in 1921 they remade the film – a “new expanded version” .[12]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 49-50, 147 Then, in 1934, Raymond Longford made a third (sound) version.[13]Pike & Cooper (1980) p220. Unfortunately Longford’s version seems to be lost or at least unavailable

14. A Girl of the Bush (1921)

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  • @ Internet Archive Library at Internet Archive [Watch here]

    Comment: This film by Franklyn Barrett casts the action around the heroine – the Squatter’s daughter – played by New Zealand actor Vera James (1892-1980). With its picturesque scenes of honest rural life juxtaposed against the corruption of the city, it was a familiar narrative. Comic relief was offered by aged townspeople and several Chinese workers (one of whom – Sam Warr – really was Chinese). The entire film survives.[14]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 140-141

15. Painted Daughters (1925)

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    Comment: Directed by F. Stuart-Whyte (1877-1947), whose intention was to “construct bright, snappy, amusing productions, such as might find favour in all parts of the world,” for Australasian films.[15]Pike & Cooper (1980) p163-164 There are indeed, plenty of scenes of bright young people of the era, driving shiny cars, dancing, swimming and having fun at fashionable Sydney homes, set against a melodrama of love lost and won. Numerous Sydney tyros were deliberately selected for the cast – including Phyllis Barry (1908-1954), Billie Sim (1900-1980), Fernande Butler (1897-1972) and Marie Lorraine (1899-1982). About 50 minutes of the film survives.

16. Those Terrible Twins (1925)

17. Around the Boree Log (1925)

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    Comment: Directed by Phillip K Walsh in the Goulburn area of New South Wales, using local talent, it was based on the poems of John O’Brien (Father Patrick Hartigan) (1878-1952). Pike & Cooper describe it as a “sentimental journey through Australian bush society,” but because of its Catholic- Irish sentiments it was treated with caution by distributors and had limited success.[16]Pike & Cooper (1980) p166 It survives in its entirety.

18. The Moth of Moonbi (1926)

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    Comment: Pioneer director Charles Chauvel‘s (1897-1959) first film survives – at least in part. Chauvel had previous experience on Snowy Baker films and had spent several years working in Hollywood. He based this feature on a newly published novel, filming some of it in difficult terrain in Queensland. The plot concerns a country girl who squanders her inheritance in the big city, before returning, wiser, to the country, to marry a stockman. In real life, leading actors Marsden Hassall and Doris Ashwin later married, but they did not appear in another film. [17]Pike & Cooper (1980) p167

19. Greenhide (1926)

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    Comment: Chauvel’s second film was a reverse of the plot of his first. Elsie Sylvaney (1898-1983) played the high society city girl who visits a cattle station, and after some adventures, falls in love with “Greenhide Gavin”, the station manager.[18] Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 175-6 Elsie (later Elsa) Sylvaney married Chauvel in June 1927 and became his constant collaborator. The Chauvels struggled to get the film released, frustrated by the dominant cinema block booking system, and they took to hawking the film to country cinemas themselves. In 1928 they took prints of their two films to the US, but without success – as sound films were rapidly becoming popular. The Chauvels returned to filmmaking in 1933 with In The Wake of the Bounty. Ina Bertrand’s article on Elsa Chauvel is here at the Women Film Pioneers Project.

20. For the Term of His Natural Life (1927)

21. The Kid Stakes (1927)

22. The Far Paradise (1928)

23. The Romance of Runnibede (1928)

  • @ The Administrator Channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Recently (2025) made available by the good folks at the Administrator channel. Starring US actor Eve Novak (1898-1988) and directed by US director Scott R Dunlap (1892-1970). Dunlap’s arrival was delayed so some scenes were directed by Novak’s husband William Reed (also see headline photo above) Pike & Cooper describe this as a “Hollywood formula movie designed for overseas audiences, with maps and explanatory title about Australia…” made in the enthusiastic rush after For the Term of His Natural Life. [20]Pike & Cooper (1980) p184-5 [Caution – contains dated and offensive stereotypes of indigenous Australians]

24. The Birth of White Australia (1928)

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    Comment: The Birth of White Australia was discovered intact in the 1960s, at Young, NSW, where it was filmed. It was an attempt by Phillip K Walsh to make “a panoramic view of Australian racial history,” again using local talent.[21]Pike & Cooper (1980) p191 Although it reflected common prejudices of the era, it had no commercial screenings after its local premiere and Walsh made no more films. [Caution – the film’s crude and racist content and clunky production values makes it very heavy going for modern viewers]

25. The Cheaters (1929-30)

  • @ Pelciulas Mudas/ Silent cinema channel on Youtube [ Silent version – Watch here]
  • @ Classic Old Australian Films channel at Internet Archive [Silent version – Watch here]
  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube [includes 3 surviving sound clips – Watch here]

    Comment: This crime melodrama was completed as a silent in 1929, but with the arrival in cinemas of sound, the McDonagh sisters added some sequences with sound to improve the film’s commercial chances. [22]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 201-2 Unfortunately, the sound quality was primitive and the audience reaction mixed.[23]Andree Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers, Women in Australian Cinema, Chapter 3 The sound footage can be heard in this talk by Graham Shirley: The McDonagh Sisters and ‘The Cheaters’ . In 1932 the McDonagh sisters made an anti-war film called Two Minutes Silence. That is now a lost film and it was their last. [24]It was also the last feature film to be directed by a woman in Australia until Gillian Armstrong (b.1950) directed My Brilliant Career almost 50 years later

26. Diggers (1931)

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  • @ The Administrator Channel on Youtube [in three parts – Watch part 1 here]

    Comment: Directed by Frank W.Thring (1882-1936), this 60 minute comedy was largely based on Pat Hanna’s popular “digger” stage act. Hanna (1888-1973), the leading player, was very unhappy with Thring’s editing, and thereafter directed his own films. Thring had imported the latest RCA sound equipment to make this film – reflecting his ongoing efforts to establish a viable Australian film industry. The film was released in November 1931 and survives today.[25]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 205-6

27. Showgirl’s Luck (1931)

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  • @ Classic Films channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Often cited as Australia’s “first talkie” this musical was directed by Norman Dawn and starred his wife Susan Denis (Katherine Dawn 1896-1984) Dawn had returned to Australia in October 1929 with plans to make sound films in Australia. The plot concerns the making of an Australian talkie, “from which was hung as many musical numbers as could be worked in.” [26]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 206-8 But trade reviews were poor – and the sound-on-disc technology he had used was already being superseded. With sound transferred to optical, it was finally released in December 1931. However, Dawn soon abandoned Australia. The film remains interesting for Dawn’s use of special effects.

28. On Our Selection (1932)

  • @ Classic Old Australian films channel at Internet Archive [Watch here]
  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube (Introduced by David Stratton) [Watch here]

    Comment: Ken G Hall’s(1901-1994) first sound feature film was a great success – it broke all house records when it opened at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre. It was based on the popular stage version of On Our Selection, made famous by Bert Bailey (1868-1953), who also produced the film and starred as “Dad Rudd.” It differed markedly from Raymond Longford’s 1920 version, with Hall “stressing the characters’ ability to fight back against adversity,” which struck a chord with Depression era audiences. [27]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 208-210 As David Stratton states in the introduction (to the Administrator channel copy) the film combined comedy and melodrama, mercilessly satirising city dwellers as opposed to the honest characters of “the bush.” On the back of this great success, Cinesound Productions was established. There were three successful sequels made – Grandad Rudd (1935), Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938) and Dad Rudd, M.P. (1940)

29. His Royal Highness (1932)

30. Diggers in Blighty (1933)

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    Comment: Pat Hanna again used stage material and actors from his Famous Diggers troupe for this, his own production. In direction, Hanna was assisted by Raymond Longford who also briefly appeared as a German spy. As Pike & Cooper point out, the pace is slow, with stock footage of London used to provide some context of “Blighty.” The film also has a slight claim to fame in that it was the first screen appearance by future actor Peggy (later Mary) Maguire (1919-1974). The 14 year-old sat in the background in just one office scene, giggling at Hanna’s antics – apparently Hanna provided her with little direction. This may also be the first Australian film to give a speaking role to an Indigenous actor, who plays another soldier.

31. Harmony Row (1933)

  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Another Efftree film production directed by Frank W Thring, and again starring popular comedian George Wallace. The plot concerns the humorous adventures of Wallace as a policeman, on a tough beat called Harmony row. Leonard, a child street singer, was played by Bill Kerr (1922-2014) – then known as Willie Kerr, in his first screen role of a very long career.[29]Pike & Cooper (1980) p213

32. In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)

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    Comment: This was Charles Chauvel’s first sound film, and the first of a series of projected travel films. Chauvel faced great difficulties filming at Pitcairn Island and then, further challenges with the censors on his return to Australia. This was also the first film for young Errol Flynn (1909-1959), who turned in a very wooden performance as Fletcher Christian in the dramatized scenes.[30]Pike & Cooper (1980) p214

33. The Squatter’s Daughter (1933)

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    Comment: Ken Hall’s second film for Cinesound was another great success – it did very well and returned its money in Australia and New Zealand. Hall’s difficulty in developing the script is described in Paul Byrnes’ notes. The plot revolved around Joan Enderby’s efforts to save the family sheep station[31]Australian term for large pastoral lease or property from a wicked neighbour. Enderby was played by young Australian actor Jocelyn Howarth (1911-1963) who moved to the US in 1936 and adopted the stage name Constance Worth. Apart from the film’s startlingly realistic bushfire scenes, of interest is the long introduction written by then Prime Minister Joseph Lyons, reminding us again that politicians often attached great importance to cinema depictions of Australia. [32]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 215-6 The entire film survives.

34. The Hayseeds (1933)

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    Comment: Beaumont Smith had previously made six (silent) Hayseed rural family comedies, but this final offering may have been an attempt to cash in on the success of Hall’s On Our Selection, with some musical numbers added for good effect. As usual in this genre, simple but honest country people are the heroes while city dwellers are ridiculed – in this case the monocle wearing Mr Townleigh and his family – who later befriend the Hayseeds. Dad Hayseed was played by Cecil Kellaway (1890-1973), the first of many film roles in his long career. [33]Pike & Cooper (1980) p218

35. The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934)

  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube [ Watch here]

    Comment: Based on a novel by Maxwell Gray and subsequently a play, this had been filmed twenty years before by Raymond Longford. It became another success for Ken Hall and Cinesound, who used visiting British actors John Longden (1900-1971) and Charlotte Francis (1904-1983) in the leading roles. In supporting roles were Jocelyn Howarth and John Warwick (1905-1972). The melodrama concerned “a clergyman who denied responsibility for the pregnancy of his lover and death of her father.” [34]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 218-9 This is a shortened version.

36. A Ticket in Tatts (1934)

  • @ The Administrator channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: This was another Frank W Thring film featuring George Wallace. As Paul Brynes writes, this film was again based on existing material that Wallace had developed for the stage. The underwhelming plot drifts through a number of largely unrelated sequences but concerns a horse race and some crooks who wish to drug “Hotspur”, the cup favourite.[35]Pyke & Cooper (1980), pp 218-9 Paul Byrnes suggests that “Thring was a director of meagre talents, although he often worked with the best of Australia’s theatrical performers.” [36]Soon after this film was completed, Thring began work on Sheepmates, but this project was soon abandoned. A few outtakes from Sheepmates can be seen here.

37. Clara Gibbings (1934)

  • @ The Administrator Channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: One of the last films from Frank W.Thring‘s Eftee productions, this had been a successful stage play – with a familiar “rags to riches” plot. London pub proprietor Clara Gibbings discovers she is the daughter of an Earl. The happy ending is that, disillusioned with “society,” Clara moves to Australia. But even the inclusion of popular musical comedy star Dorothy Brunton (1890-1977) in the title role could not save the film, which looks exactly like the filmed stage play it was. Pike & Cooper note that after a three week run in Melbourne, it simply disappeared. [37]Pike & Cooper (1980) p221 Eric Reade rightly observed that the film was overloaded with dialogue, but at least it provided welcome relief from Steele Rudd films. [38]Reade (1979) History & heartburn, Harper & Row. p96-7

38. Strike Me Lucky (1934)

  • @ The Administrator Channel on Youtube [Watch here]

    Comment: Uploaded recently (2025) by the good folks at the Administrator Channel on Youtube, this film is significant in many ways. It was the only film made by very popular Australian stage comedian Roy Rene (1891-1954), and yet director Ken Hall and Rene himself, regarded it as a failure. Rene said he “found it too hard trying to be funny to no one. [meaning in a studio] You need the stimulus of an audience when you’re used to one…” [39]Rene cited in Pike & Cooper (1980) p221

39. Heritage (1935)

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    Comment: This was Charles Chauvel’s very ambitious panorama of colonial history. In the opinion of Paul Byrnes at the NFSA it was intended to be a “thunderous endorsement of the pioneer mythology of Australia”. But the film was not well cast – Franklyn Bennett (1904-1975) was an amateur while Peggy Maguire was just 16 years old – and Chauvel’s script often seemed more like a tiresome lesson on colonial history, with key characters delivering very serious lectures about Australia’s wonderful prospects. The film was not a success in Australia or internationally, but it did win the £2,500 Commonwealth film prize for that year – from a very small pool. Pike & Cooper point out that as a result of the experience, Chauvel’s backers turned to “material with wider international appeal.” [40]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 224-226 The entire film survives.
    . 

40. Rangle River (1936)

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    Comment: This film was based on an original story by writer of numerous US Westerns, Zane Grey (1872-1939), with a script treatment written by Charles and Elsa Chauvel. Rangle River also partly owes its existence to New South Wales’ short-lived efforts to have an Australian film quota – a requirement that a certain number of films exhibited had to be Australian-made. As with The Flying Doctor(1936) it was made with significant US input, including director Clarence Badger (1880-1964), principal technicians and leading man Victor Jory (1902-1982). The plot concerns the heroine, played by Margaret Dare (1912-1999) returning to her father’s cattle station, while the evil neighbour attempts to shut them down by damming up the Rangle River and depriving them of water. The film has since gained some unintended notoriety, based on its US release name Men With Whips, and due to the climatic stock-whip fight between the two leading protagonists.[41] Pike & Cooper (1980) p232 The entire film survives.

41. It Isn’t Done (1937)

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    Comment: NFSA curator Paul Byrnes describes 1937 as a golden year for Cinesound Pictures, who now had developed an efficient business model – with backing by Greater Union Theatres, an efficient production unit, and Ken Hall‘s competent direction of competent actors. In this case, a story was provided by stage actor Cecil Kellaway (1890-1973) who was starring in his first film, while newcomer Shirley Ann Richards (1917-2006) took an ingenue role. The plot concerns an Australian farmer Hubert Blaydon (Kellaway) who inherits a title and an English baronial estate. Blaydon decides he prefers life in Australia and contrives to lose the title, while his daughter Patricia (Richards) marries the next heir.[42]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 232-3 The entire film survives.

42. Tall Timbers (1937)

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    Comment: As Pike & Cooper point out, the climax of this Ken Hall Cinesound picture, a “timber drive” (where trees on a mountain slope fall and knock down more in their path) had to be modelled after two attempts to do it in real life failed. The plot involves a race between rivals to fulfil a timber contract. As Paul Byrnes notes, the film was very much in the style of a classic silent melodrama , but it made money for Cinesound. Shirley Ann Richards again featured. [43]Pike & Cooper (1980) p235 The entire film survives.

43. Lovers and Luggers (1937)

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    Comment: Ken Hall’s film featured imported US actor Lloyd Hughes (1897-1958) in this adventure film of pearl diving on Thursday Island. As Paul Byrnes comments, Ken Hall always regarded this as one of his best films. In addition to its technical competence, the strong supporting cast, including Shirley Ann Richards, Elaine Hamill (1911-1981), Alec Kellaway (1897-1893) ensured it did well at the box-office. In the US it was titled Vengeance of the Deep.[44]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 235-6 The entire film survives.

44. Gone to the Dogs (1939)

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    Comment: Ken Hall had filmed Let George Do It with George Wallace in 1938, which had been another success for Cinesound.(Unfortunately, so far this writer has not found a copy anywhere to watch) This second Cinesound outing with Wallace had the benefit of talented co-star Lois Green (1914-2006), a singer and dancer for JC Williamsons. Gone to the Dogs is about the then popular past time of dog racing – George Wallace‘s character having invented a tonic that makes dogs run faster. The main song and dance number of the film is a highlight.[45]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 242-3 The entire film survives.

45. Dad and Dave Come to Town (1939)

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    Comment: For the third of Cinesound’s Dad and Dave series, Ken Hall moved the story from its usual rustic country setting to a modern city, where Dad Rudd (again played by Bert Bailey) inherits a women’s fashion store. Shirley Ann Richards played his sophisticated adult daughter Jill, who ends up running the business, after thwarting efforts by a rival firm to shut them down. The film was a great success in Australia and in Britain, where it was released as the Rudd Family Goes to Town. [46]Pike & Cooper (1980) pp240-1 Also in the supporting cast was a very young Peter Finch (1916-1977). The entire film survives.

46. Seven Little Australians (1939)

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    Comment: Perhaps it is a good thing to end this directory with a film that failed at the box office, to balance any impression of continual success. Ethel Turner’s (1870-1958) novel had been written in 1894 and was well known to Australians. But according to Pike & Cooper, this 1939 film was rambling and crudely made.[47]Pike & Cooper (1980) p244. Director Arthur Greville Collins (1896-1980) had experience as a director of plays in the UK and on several US films in the mid 1930s. Funding came from Sydney businessman Edward H O’Brien, who apparently initially planned more films. Almost certainly the poor reception for this film – both at the box office and critically – helped him come to this decision not to do this. And yet despite the poor reception, Collins settled in Australia, and directed one more film in 1949.
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Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford Uni Press/AFI
↑2 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 7-9
↑3 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 14-15
↑4 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 30-32
↑5 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 102-103
↑6 Pike & Cooper (1980) p121-122
↑7 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 126-128
↑8 Pike & Cooper (1980) p135-6
↑9 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 132-134
↑10 Pike & Cooper (1980) p131
↑11 Pike & Cooper (1980) p138-9
↑12 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 49-50, 147
↑13 Pike & Cooper (1980) p220. Unfortunately Longford’s version seems to be lost or at least unavailable
↑14 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 140-141
↑15 Pike & Cooper (1980) p163-164
↑16 Pike & Cooper (1980) p166
↑17 Pike & Cooper (1980) p167
↑18 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 175-6
↑19 Pike & Cooper (1980) p178
↑20 Pike & Cooper (1980) p184-5
↑21 Pike & Cooper (1980) p191
↑22 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 201-2
↑23 Andree Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers, Women in Australian Cinema, Chapter 3
↑24 It was also the last feature film to be directed by a woman in Australia until Gillian Armstrong (b.1950) directed My Brilliant Career almost 50 years later
↑25 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 205-6
↑26 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 206-8
↑27 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 208-210
↑28 Pike & Cooper (1980) p211
↑29 Pike & Cooper (1980) p213
↑30 Pike & Cooper (1980) p214
↑31 Australian term for large pastoral lease or property
↑32 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 215-6
↑33 Pike & Cooper (1980) p218
↑34 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 218-9
↑35 Pyke & Cooper (1980), pp 218-9
↑36 Soon after this film was completed, Thring began work on Sheepmates, but this project was soon abandoned. A few outtakes from Sheepmates can be seen here.
↑37 Pike & Cooper (1980) p221
↑38 Reade (1979) History & heartburn, Harper & Row. p96-7
↑39 Rene cited in Pike & Cooper (1980) p221
↑40 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 224-226
↑41 Pike & Cooper (1980) p232
↑42 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 232-3
↑43 Pike & Cooper (1980) p235
↑44 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 235-6
↑45 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp 242-3
↑46 Pike & Cooper (1980) pp240-1
↑47 Pike & Cooper (1980) p244.

Trilby Clark (1896-1983) goes to Hollywood

Above: Trilby Clark in Franklin Barrett’s Breaking of the Drought, in 1920. Photograph from the collection of the State Library of Victoria , now in the Public Domain.
The 5 second version
Trilby Clark – such a wonderful name! Born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1896, Trilby Clark enjoyed an episodic acting career in Australia, the US and Britain and endured two short marriages on two continents. Something of a restless soul, she made the long return sea journey back to Australia five times during her life. She died in London in 1983. She had at least twenty films to her credit, plus numerous stage and radio appearances

Born Gwendolyn Gladys Blakely Clark on 30 August 1896, she was the youngest of Edward Clark and Jane nee Long‘s nine children. Edward, the owner of the East Adelaide Brewing Company, died suddenly in 1900, when Trilby was only four. However, the family appears not to have suffered financially because of the tragedy, as her extensive travel history suggests significant on-going financial security.

Trilby Clark‘s unusual nick-name was derived from the play Trilby, popular about the time she was born. Years later, she claimed her father had chosen the pet name because she was born with six toes. Trilby attended Adelaide’s Dryburgh House School (also known as Presbyterian Ladies College) and excelled in her studies, and from her mid teens began to appear in charity performances and at dance clubs.

Following some experiences in amateur theatricals in Adelaide, from late 1917 she won a place performing professionally with the British actress Ada Reeve in Malcolm Watson‘s musical – Winnie Brooke, Widow. Reeve was hugely popular internationally, and this was one of her most famous roles – she had first performed it in London in 1904. This was a great breakthrough and a testament to her ability.

21 year old Trilby Clark about to appear with Ada Reeve. Sunday Times (Sydney) 16 December 1917. Via the National Library of Australia’s Trove.

Following this successful tour, Trilby appeared with Harry Rickards‘ Tivoli Players in the new musicals My Lady Frayle, and The Officer’s Mess, the latter produced by Robert Greig and featuring another up and coming actor in Vera Pearce. Then another breakthrough followed, in late 1919 pioneer director Franklyn Barrett cast her in a leading role in his film The Breaking of the Drought. Adapted from a stage play, extolling the virtues of an honest living made in the country as opposed to the lazy life of the city, the somewhat dated film (even for its time) seems to have been moderately well received in Australia. But the experience was more than enough to wet Trilby’s appetite for more. Soon after, she departed for England, where she said she spent six months studying voice under the Adelaide-born singer Arthur Otto (better known as Kingston Stewart).

The Breaking of the Drought (1920) The struggling Galloway family decide to find their wastrel son, who is spending the family fortune in Sydney. Nan Taylor as mother, Trilby as daughter Marjorie and Charles Beetham as father. Photograph from the collection of the State Library of Victoria.
Daily News, via Newspapers.com

Trilby arrived in New York in February 1921, and with some Australian stage experiences, and with the aid of some imaginative publicity about winning an Australian beauty competition and having modelled for wartime posters in Australia, she found a place in the cast of the Greenwich Village Follies. The show opened in August at the Shubert Theatre. She was the “most beautiful girl in Australia” according to the New York Daily News of July 31, 1921 (at left). Over time Trilby Clark proved herself a great self promoter, as so many Australians who travelled overseas at that time had to be.

She didn’t stay in New York for very long. She arrived home in late December 1921, making comment on the strenuous rehearsal schedule required for a New York performer. “Sunday brought no respite” in the schedule she complained, but otherwise the reason for her short season (it could only have been 8 weeks) remains a mystery.

She returned to see her mother in Young Street, Wayville, Adelaide, and she appeared briefly on stage for J C Williamson’s in Sydney again. Then suddenly, it was announced she was heading back to the US to pursue an interest in movies. She arrived in California on the Niagara in August 1922.

Trilby looking sultry in US fan mags. Left: Photoplay Jan-June 1924. Right: Exhibitors Herald, 1 Sept 1923. Via Lantern Digital Media Project.

Fox Pictures signed her up in June 1923 and William Wellman directed her in Big Dan soon after, a boxing drama starring Charles “Buck” Jones, and coincidentally in company with Australian-born actors Charles Coleman and Lydia Yeamans Titus. Good looking, 5’6″ tall (167 cm) with dark brown hair and dark eyes, this was the start of a busy three year period in Hollywood for her, although she did not stay with Fox for long. Over the next few years she appeared in contemporary and historical dramas, westerns for Hunt Stromberg and even a Ben Turpin short comedy for Mack Sennett. And then in 1926 she met and fell in love with a charming Italian actor newly arrived in the US, Niccolo Quattrociocchi (stage name Lucio Flamma) – they married in November. Unfortunately Niccolo had rather old fashioned views even for 1927. He commenced divorce proceedings against Trilby after six months, US newspapers taking great delight in reporting that, amongst other things, she refused to prepare macaroni for him.

Trilby smiling (at right) in a posed Christmas photo, with Harriet Hammond and director Scott Dunlap. Exhibitors Herald, Dec 1925, via Lantern Digital Media Project.
Trilby and Niccolo as they appeared in The News (Adelaide) 25 Jan 1927. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove.

Trilby fled the US for England, where, without too much difficulty, she resumed her film career. She appeared in ten British films, including The Devil’s Maze (1929) which was dialogued after completion as a silent film and released in both formats. In 1930 she also appeared in Edgar Wallace‘s crime drama The Squeaker, directed by Wallace and based on his own popular novel and play. Her other sound films including the early British musical Harmony Heaven (1930), which also appears to have been her last – one of the few of her films that can be seen today. With a relatively unsophisticated “Show within a Show” plot, crude management of sound and music and uneven performances by some of the principals, seen today Harmony Heaven tells us much about the challenging transition to sound films in Britain. Trilby seems to have acknowledged this herself. Several years later she told an Adelaide paper “No one understood the adjustment of the microphone properly, so that the mere putting down of a piece of paper was reproduced like a gunshot, and walking made a deafening clatter.“


No sign of an Australian accent here! Trilby Clark in Harmony Heaven (1930) as Lady Violet. The film was supposedly also made in colour, although only a black and white version survives now. Available as part of the British Musicals series from Network.

Calgary Herald, 21 June 1932, via Newspapers.com

Following another short sojourn in the US in 1930, where she appeared in at least one un-credited supporting role – as a secretary in Doctor’s Wives, Trilby married stockbroker Ronald Stanley Anker Simmons in London in June 1932 – a union that brought considerable Australian publicity. Simmons was fifteen years Trilby’s junior, although she was already being creative about her age and claiming a birth around 1902, a practice common amongst so many actors of the time.

Like her marriage to Niccolo, her second marriage appears to have lasted only six months – she quietly initiated divorce proceedings against her husband in 1933. In early 1935 she travelled back to Australia again, visiting family and friends, and talking to the press about her film work in Britain and Hollywood. Having previously explained that she had retired, she was encouraged to appear on stage in Melbourne in the satire So This is Hollywood, with a young Peter Finch and Gwen Munro. Trilby played a temperamental film star. The play was not a success, reviewers feeling it was poorly scripted and amateurish, although there was praise for the actors. Trilby moved to an apartment in Sydney and in April 1936 she was on hand to farewell a young, hopeful Jocelyn Howarth, who was heading to Hollywood. In August 1937 Trilby departed Australia for England again, but via the US. In March 1939, she was back in Australia yet again, “on a holiday,” via the ship Dominion Monarch. She was still living in Australia when World War II broke out.

Trilby, now based in Sydney, performed on radio and joined the cast of several plays at the Minerva Theatre – Susan and God in 1941 and Jane Eyre in 1943. (She is shown at left in ABC Weekly, 17 July, 1943. Via National Library of Australia’s Trove)

We know she returned to Britain after World War II and that she spent some time living in the south of France. Having now knocked ten years off her age, she travelled extensively, back to Australia in 1957, also to the US and Canada, but it seems she had well and truly retired from stage and screen.

She was never interviewed again about her work across three continents, and was quickly forgotten in Australia. In the last decade of the twentieth century, Matthew Sweet, a British film historian, interviewed many of the surviving actors from the early years of British cinema. But he was too late to speak to Trilby. She was living comfortably at 40 Elm Park Gardens in Chelsea, London, when she died on 11 January 1983, aged 87.

Note: Nicky Quattrociocchi ran El Borracho restaurant in New York for many years. He wrote a memoir and recipe book entitled “Love and Dishes” in 1950. After wartime service in the Royal Navy, Ronnie Anker Simmons moved to the US and pursued business interests.

Nick Murphy
July 2020

Further Reading

Films

Text

  • Matthew Sweet (2005) Shepperton Babylon, The Lost Worlds of British Cinema. Faber and Faber.
  • John Tulloch (1981) Legends of the Screen. The Narrative film in Australia 1919-1929. AFI/Currency Press.

State Library of Victoria

Small Town Papers Archive.

National Library of Australia’s Trove

  • The Bulletin Vol. 40 No. 2043, (10 Apr 1919)
  • The Sun (Sydney) 29 Dec 1921
  • The News (Adelaide) 25 Jan 1927
  • The News (Adelaide) 11 April 1931
  • The Australian Women’s Mirror Vol 8, No 29, 14 June 1932
  • The Australian Women’s Mirror Vol 10, No 14, 27 Feb 1934
  • The News (Adelaide) 19 Sept 1935
  • Weekly Times (Melbourne) Sat 21 Sep 1935 Page 28
  • The Sydney Morning Herald 31 Aug 1942
  • Bowen Independent (Qld) Fri 5 Mar 1943

Newspapers.com

  • Boston Post, 22 Jul 1921
  • The San Francisco Examiner 19 June, 1927
  • Victoria Daily Times (Canada) 12 May, 1930
  • Edmonton Journal (Canada) 5 July 1932
  • The Age (Melbourne) 20 Mar 1939

Lantern Digital Media Project

  • Exhibitors Herald, Jun-Aug 1923
  • Motion Picture News, 7 July 1923
  • Exhibitors Herald, Sep 1923
  • Photoplay Magazine, Jan-June 1924
  • Exhibitors Herald, Dec 1925-Mar 1926
  • Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World, Apr-Jun 1929
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