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Southern Cross Feature Film Company
Southern Cross Feature Film Company was a short lived film production company that made some of Australia's most famous silent films, mostly directed by Raymond Longford. One of the key figures behind it was Sir David Gordon. History The company was incorporated in Adelaide in 1917 and announced they would make five dramas and three comedies over the next 12 months. Another report said they hoped to make "six or eight five reelers" over twelve months. One hundred shares were offered at £1 a share. Their first picture was to be ''The Black Opal'' but this does not seem to have been made. They offered cash for Australian stories. According to Raymond Longford, they initially secured the serves of American director, Mr Walter May Plank, but he left Australia and Longford was called in instead.Merv Wasson, "The Woman Suffers: Why Ever Was She Banned?", ''Cinema Papers'', July 1984 p158-160 Their first feature was the successful '' The Woman Suffers'' (1918). which was followed by ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raymond Longford
Raymond Longford (born John Walter Hollis Longford, 23 September 18782 April 1959) was a prolific Australian film director, writer, producer and actor during the silent era. Longford was a major director of the silent film era of the Australian cinema. He formed a production team with Lottie Lyell. His contributions to Australian cinema with his ongoing collaborations with Lyell, including ''The Sentimental Bloke'' (1919) and '' The Blue Mountains Mystery'' (1921), prompted the Australian Film Institute's AFI Raymond Longford Award, inaugurated in 1968, to be named in his honour. Biography John Walter Hollis Longford was born in Hawthorn, a suburb of Melbourne, the son of John Walter Longford, a civil servant originally from Sydney, and his English wife, Charlotte Maria. His family soon started referring to him as "Ray". By 1880 they briefly moved to Paynesville, then went to Sydney when Longford's father became a warder at Darlinghurst Gaol. Longford became a sailor and spent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snowy Baker
Reginald Leslie "Snowy" Baker (8 February 18842 December 1953) was an Australian athlete, sports promoter, and actor. Born in Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Baker excelled at a number of sports, winning New South Wales swimming and boxing championships while still a teenager. Playing rugby union for Eastern Suburbs, he played several games for New South Wales against Queensland, and in 1904 represented Australia in two Test matches against Great Britain. At the 1908 London Olympics, Baker represented Australasia in swimming and diving, as well as taking part in the middleweight boxing event, in which he won a silver medal. He also excelled in horsemanship, water polo, running, rowing and cricket.Mandle W. F.Baker, Reginald Leslie (Snowy) (1884–1953), Australian Dictionary of Biography 1979. Accessed 30 January 2015 However, "His stature as an athlete depends largely upon the enormous range rather than the outstanding excellence of his acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Blue Mountains Mystery
''The Blue Mountains Mystery'' is a lost 1921 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford and co-directed by Lottie Lyell. The film was derived from the 1919 novel '' The Mount Marunga Mystery'' by Harrison Owen. It is considered a lost film. Plot ''The Blue Mountains Mystery'' involves the alleged murder of a wealthy businessman, Henry Tracey, and the eventual discovery that the victim was an underworld look-alike impersonator. The main suspects are Tracey's ward, Pauline, Mrs Tracey, and Pauline's boyfriend, Hector, and his rival, Richard Maxim. Eventually the supposedly dead Henry Tracey reappears and announces that he had been kidnapped. The corpse was Stephen Rodder, a man with a strong resemblance to Tracey. Cast *Marjorie Osborne as Mrs Tracey *John Faulkner as Henry Tracey/Stephen Rodder *Vivian Edwards as Hector Blunt * Bernice Vere as Pauline Tracey *Billy Williams as Richard Maxim *Redmond Barry as detective *John de Lacey as Captain Banks *Ivy Shilling as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudd's New Selection
''Rudd's New Selection'' is a 1921 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford based on the Dad and Dave stories by Steele Rudd. It is a sequel to ''On Our Selection'' (1920). The plot concerns the marriage of Dave Rudd (Tal Ordell) and introduces a sister, Nell (Lottie Lyell). Although popular on release, the movie is now considered lost. Synopsis The movie is set eight years after the events of ''On Our Selection''. The Rudd family are now more prosperous, but Dad is as autocratic as ever. His children are grown up and the baby twins are up to mischief Dave is married and tries to do as little work as possible, but is forced to do so by his wife and domineering mother. Dave's sister Nell is pursued by the Regan brothers, the younger of whom, Jim, was a decorated returned soldier, the elder, Jack, a drunkard. The two brothers fight over Nell and Jack commits suicide. Jim is arrested for his murder but the truth comes out at the end and he and Nell are married. There a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jackeroo Of Coolabong
''The Jackeroo of Coolabong'' is a 1920 Australian silent film starring renowned Australian sportsman Snowy Baker. It was the last of three films he made with the husband and wife team of director Wilfred Lucas and writer Bess Meredyth, both of whom had been imported from Hollywood. It is considered a lost film. Synopsis Brian O'Farrell (Snowy Baker), is an English 'new chum' who takes a job at an Australian cattle station. He is teased by station hands because of his appearance (including spats and a monocle) but he soon impresses them with his skills at riding and boxing. The station manager, John MacDonald (Wilfred Lucas), takes O'Farrell to Sydney to meet his daughter Edith (Kathleen Key) who is working in the slums. Edith is kidnapped by criminals after witnessing a crime but O'Farrell rescues her. It is later revealed he is the owner of the station. Cast *Snowy Baker as Brian O'Farrell * Kathleen Key as Edith MacDonald *Wilfred Lucas as John MacDonald * Arthur Tauchert * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algie's Romance
''Algie's Romance'' is a 1918 Australian silent film. It is a comedy starring Charlie Chaplin impersonator Leonard Doogood as an Englishman who arrives in Australia and has adventures. Plot An Englishman, Algie, arrives in Australia and stays with friends in the country. Twin sisters both fall in love with him. Various practical jokes are played on Algie, but he eventually proves his mettle. He proves himself a crack shot and gains a wife. Cast *Leonard Doogood as Algie *Boyd Irwin *May Henry *June Henry Production Doogood was a Charlie Chaplin impersonator who had previously made a one-reel short film in South Australia, ''Charlie's Twin Brother''. The film was shot on a cattle station owned by the Downer family in South Australia, near the Mount Lofty Ranges. Technical facilities were provided by Southern Cross Feature Films.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 83. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ginger Mick
''Ginger Mick'' is a 1920 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford based on ''The Moods of Ginger Mick'' by C. J. Dennis, which had sold over 70,000 copies. It is a sequel to ''The Sentimental Bloke'' (1919) and is considered a lost film. Plot The adventures of Ginger Mick (Gilbert Emery) take him from slums and backyards to lock-ups and racecourses. He romances Rose, works as a rabbitoh and enlists to fight in World War I. He writes letters back to his old friend, the Bloke ( Arthur Tauchert) now married to Doreen (Lottie Lyell) with a young son, Bill. Mick makes friends with a fellow soldier, Keith, and is eventually killed at Gallipoli on the hills of Sari Bair. Cast *Gilbert Emery as Ginger Mick * Arthur Tauchert as the Bloke *Lottie Lyell as Doreen *Queenie Cross *Jack Tauchert as Bill Production E. J. Carroll wanted a sequel to ''The Sentimental Bloke'' so Longford came up with the idea of combining two poems by C. J. Dennis, ''The Moods of Ginger Mick'' an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia and "the most widely-read masthead in the country." The newspaper is published in compact print form from Monday to Saturday as ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and on Sunday as its sister newspaper, '' The Sun-Herald'' and digitally as an online site and app, seven days a week. It is considered a newspaper of record for Australia. The print edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' is available for purchase from many retail outlets throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, most parts of regional New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland. Overview ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' publishes a variety of supplements, including the magazines ''Good Weekend'' (included in the Saturday edition of ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Register (Adelaide)
''The Register'', originally the ''South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register'', and later ''South Australian Register,'' was South Australia's first newspaper. It was first published in London in June 1836, moved to Adelaide in 1837, and folded into '' The Advertiser'' almost a century later in February 1931. The newspaper was the sole primary source for almost all information about the settlement and early history of South Australia. It documented shipping schedules, legal history and court records at a time when official records were not kept. According to the National Library of Australia, its pages contain "one hundred years of births, deaths, marriages, crime, building history, the establishment of towns and businesses, political and social comment". All issues are freely available online, via Trove. History ''The Register'' was conceived by Robert Thomas, a law stationer, who had purchased for his family of land in the proposed South Australian province after be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AustLit
AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource (also known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway; and AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature), usually referred to simply as AustLit, is an internet-based, non-profit collaboration between researchers and librarians from Australian universities, led by the University of Queensland (UQ), designed to comprehensively record the history of Australian literary and story-making cultures. AustLit is an encyclopaedia of Australian writers and writing. BlackWords is a landmark research project by and within AustLit that details the lives and work of Indigenous Australian authors, which includes Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and storytellers. History AustLit was founded in 2000, when several independent databases on a variety of themes related to literary studies was created from work done by research groups at eight universities. The first dataset comprised about 300,000 fairly simple biographical and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sentimental Bloke
''The Sentimental Bloke'' is a 1918 Australian silent film based on the 1915 verse novel ''The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke'' by C. J. Dennis. Produced and directed by Raymond Longford, the film stars Arthur Tauchert, Gilbert Emery, and Lottie Lyell, who also co-wrote the film with Longford. A major critical and commercial success upon its release in Australia, the film was also popular in New Zealand and Great Britain, and is generally considered the greatest Australian silent film, and one of the best Australian movies of all time. The film inspired a sequel, ''Ginger Mick'' (1920), and a 1932 remake. In 2004, the National Film and Sound Archive released a fully restored version of ''The Sentimental Bloke'', making it one of the few Australian silent films to survive intact. Plot Bill is a Woolloomooloo larrikin, who vows to abandon his life of gambling (playing Two-up) and drinking after a spell in gaol following a raid on a two up game. He falls in love with Doreen (Lyell), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Woman Suffers
''The Woman Suffers'' is a 1918 Australian silent film directed by Raymond Longford. It is a melodrama starring Lottie Lyell. Two-thirds of the movie still survives.Merv Wasson, "The Woman Suffers: Why Ever Was She Banned?", ''Cinema Papers'', July 1984 p158-160, 196 Plot The movie consists of eight acts. In Echuca, a woman, Marion Masters (Connie Martyn) is unhappily married to Philip, a former war hero turned abusive drunk. She runs away from her husband with her baby son. Her husband falls on a knife and dies, their home is destroyed in a fire and she collapses in the bush. By the time she is rescued her son has been found by another family who run the station "Kooringa". Marion is taken to a station "Willaroon" owned by widowed Stephen Manton (Charles H Francis), who has two children, Ralph and Marjory. Marion believes her son perished in the bush. She marries Manton and becomes stepmother to his children. Her missing son grows up as Philip Stockdale (Brian Lawrence as a ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
