FEATURE FILM IS STILL AN ENIGMA: R IC H A R D F O T H E R IN G H A M , A QUEENSLAND LECTURER FAVOURITE OUTLAW W ITH ONE OF THE COUNTRY'S FOREMOST FILM PIONEERS. Brnmamsma wmmBB&Hraasgas - , ' * * * ■ . , m m ;■
policy and crime not paying etc, but audiences had an unfortunate habit of cheering every time the Terror of the North-East appeared, and howling with laughter at the efforts of the police to catch him. In 1890 one of the major actormanagers of the time, Alfred Dampier, got together with the Melbourne journalist Carnet Walch and obtained Rolf Boldrewood's permission to dramatise his very moral novel about bushranging, Robbery Under Arms. However they took some liberties with the story. They had a corrupt policeman molesting Aileen Marston, which everyone recognised as a reference to Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly, and the fourth act ended with a siege at a farmhouse which the police set on fire, just as had happened at the Glenrowan Hotel. Dampier and Walch also invented two comic Irish coppers, McGinnis and O'Hara, who displayed a distinct lack of devotion to duty. Audiences loved the play to the extent of 41 performances at Melbourne's Alexandra Theatre, and a particular favourite was Trooper O'Hara, played by Mr Reg Rede. It is not surprising therefore that when Dan Barry turned up at the same theatre eight years later with The Kelly Gang — in which Mr Reg Rede played Trooper Mulvaney, one of two Irish constables “ Who Don't Relish Their Duty” — the Age commented that “ there were scenes which bore a resemblance to the dramatisation of Rolf Boldrewood's book Robbery Under A rm s". However this was guesswork, for Rede's authorship was never publicly acknowledged. A more formidable pursuer of Dan Barry as Ned Kelly was Sergeant Steele, the brave policeman who eventually captured him at Glenrowan. Steele was played by one Harry Stoneham who had also been in Robbery Under Arms, though on the other side of the law. Stoneham was Dan Moran, Boldrewood's
MAN IN MASK: ‘Ned Kelly’ in 1906, frame enlargements from The Story Of The Kelly Gang (courtesy National Film and Sound Archive)
t? i*i
thinly-disguised portrait of Mad Dog Morgan, whose “ Eyes Glittered like a Black Snake's". Both Rede and Stoneham were still with Barry in 1903 when The Kelly Gang was performed on the last Saturday night of a two-week season in Hobart. As always it drew a huge audience. It was still a play after which it was advisable to leave town in a hurry, and by the time the Hobart Mercury thundered its disapproval, Barry, Rede, Stoneham and company were in Devonport. Where Dan Barry had gone, others quickly followed, and Kelly plays sprang up all over the continent. Some of the other Kelly Gang plays (before 1906) were: Edward Irham ('Bohemian') Cole's Hands Up! first staged in Glen Innes on 27 September 1898; John Henry Greene's The Career of the Kelly Gang on 6 May 1899 at Charters Towers; Arnold Denham's The Kelly Gang on 22 July 1899 in Sydney; and Lancelot Booth's Outlaw Kelly three weeks later and also in Sydney, but probably only a copyright reading before a NSW country tour. Rede had stolen from Dampier and Walch, and some of these other Kelly plays were clearly leased, borrowed or stolen from Rede. Arnold Denham's Sydney version even had two more ' Bou Id (?) Sons of Erin', this time called Moloney and Murphy. The respectable theatre managers and producers were dismayed, but the authorities took no action, and while these strolling subversives wandered around the country for the next decade killing stage policemen, real policemen controlled the crowds trying to get in. Which brings us to Melbourne, the second half of 1906, and the film The Story of the Kelly Gang. 'Bohemian' Cole was in town with his “ Australian Bushranging Drama" King of the Road, but this was a story about Ben Hall. Messrs Johnson and Gibson were giving a 'Picture Panorama' at the People's Concerts in the Temperance Hall. J & N Tait were screening pictures at the Town Hall and also promoting various theatrical and concert ventures. Dan Barry was also around Melbourne; on 16 October he copyrighted his 'W orld Wide Wonder Show' which had opened in Birregurra 12 days earlier. Barry had often experimented with film, as well as theatre — as early as May 1897 he had been promoting his “ Famous English Cinematographe" at the Brisbane Theatre Royal.
CINEMA PAPERS MARCH - 33