''The Spirit of Gallipoli'' is a 1928 silent

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n film. Originally running at 5,000 feet length only 1,554 feet survive.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 181.

Plot

A rebellious young man, Billy Austin, is conscripted into the

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...

. Initially an unwilling soldier, he eventually becomes a good one, and dreams of serving with the

ANZACs ''Anzacs'' (named for members of the all volunteer army formations) is a 1985 Australian five-part television miniseries set in World War I. The series follows the lives of a group of young Australian men who enlist in the 8th Battalion (Austr ...

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

. He eventually leaves the army, gets married and settles down on a farm.

Cast

*Keith Gategood as Billy Austin *William Green as Jack Thomas *Samuel Harris as William Austin *Gwen Sherwood as Mrs Austin *Marie Miller as Gladys Merton

Production

The film was made by two young army trainees of the 55th Battalion with a cast of amateurs in early 1928. It was a propaganda piece to promote the role of the army in peacetime. Army co-operation meant enabled several scenes to be shot at Liverpool camp. The footage of the Gallipoli dream sequence is taken from the silent movie '' The Hero of the Dardanelles'' (1915).Paul Byrne, 'The Hero of the Dardanelles'
at

Australian Screen Online 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 ...

Release

Commercial reception appears to have been limited.

References

External links

*
''The Spirit of Gallipoli''
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 ...

1928 films Australian silent feature films Lost Australian films Australian black-and-white films {{Australia-silent-film-stub