''Below the Surface'' is a 1938
adventure film
An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, an ...
set in the coal region of
Newcastle, Australia
Newcastle ( ; Awabakal: ) is a metropolitan area and the second most populated city in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It includes the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie local government areas, and is the hub of the Greater Newcastle area ...
. Only part of the movie survives.
Plot
Two miners compete for an important coal contract. One of them attempts to sabotage the other but fails.
Cast
*
Stan Tolhurst
Stan Tolhurst was an Australian actor, technician and filmmaker. He worked as a dancer on stage before joining Cinesound Productions for whom he would add humour to newsreels. He also worked as a producer and ran a film studio.Andrew Pike and Ross ...
*Phyllis Reilly
*Neil Carlton
*Jimmy McMahon
*Lawrence Taylor
*Reg King
*Billy Baker
*Leonard Clarke
*Frank Baker
*Billy Crooks
Production
The main investor in the movie was a prominent music house in Sydney. The film was shot on location in
Cronulla
Cronulla is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Boasting numerous surf beaches and swimming spots, the suburb attracts both tourists and Greater Sydney residents. Cronulla is located 26 kilometres south of the Sydney ...
, Sydney and Newcastle, with studio work done at
Pagewood Studios
Pagewood Studios was a film studio in Sydney, Australia, that was used to make Australian, British and Hollywood films for twenty years.
Creation
The studio was built in 1935 for National Productions by National Studios Ltd, it was originally know ...
. Kather and Tolhurt built a mine set themselves. Shooting took place from November 1937 to February 1938.
Release
Like Kathner's first movie, ''
Phantom Gold'' (1937), it was refused to be considered eligible for registration under the New South Wales
Film Quota Act
The Film Quota Act, full title the New South Wales Cinematograph Films (Australian Quota) Act was an act of legislation passed in September 1935 that came into force on 1 January 1936. Under the Act it was compulsory that in the first year of opera ...
on the grounds of poor quality.
[Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 184]
The film was never released to cinemas, the only one of Kather's movies to suffer this fate.
In February 1938 Australian Cinema Entertainments announced plans to make four more features that year for £40,000, the first which was to be ''Diamonds in the Rough''. This did not eventuate. Tolhurst did revive the name with his company, ACE Films, in the late 1940s.
References
External links
''Below the Surface''in the
Internet Movie Database
IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
''Below the Surface''at
National Film and Sound Archive
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...
''Below the Surface''at Oz Movies
1938 films
1930s adventure drama films
Australian black-and-white films
Australian adventure drama films
1938 drama films
1930s English-language films
English-language adventure drama films
{{adventure-film-stub