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LO N G
Australia’s First FilifiÉ: P a rt F iv e : In d ig e n o u s W ith Australia’s cinem a centenary approaching
,
Chris L ong continues his exploration into the myths and fictions surrounding the introduction o f the m oving picture to Australia.
Some early movies survive, but not in film form. The author is seen below in 1991, animating a fairground “Mutoscope” flip-card reel of Boer W ar combat footage from 1899. It is possible to recover sections of many early films from these flip-card entertainments, by re-photographing them onto 16mm film, frame by frame. Several of these reels were included in the author’s NFSA video, Federation Films (1991).
Early films survive entirely by chance. The remnants have created false historical assumptions. Everybody knows about Millard Johnson and William Gibson’s T he Story o f the K elly G ang (1906), produced by the Tait brothers, because parts of it survive. But was it the first important Australian storytelling film? W hat about the earlier Kelly Gang film shown by Dan Barry and Robert Hollyford in Hobart in 1906 ?1What about the bushranging drama shot by the Salvation Army Limelight Department in 1904?2 W hat about H ighlights o f the M usical C om edy ‘F lo ro d o ra ’ shot by Clement Mason in Melbourne in 19013, or the Salvation Army’s R escue o f a Suicide (1898) ?4 Films of this age bear no printed titles, and most are not mentioned in our film books. If they survived, would anyone recognize them? As archives go through unidentified holdings to “de-select” nonAustralian material, do they have the research necessary to recog nize Australian films? Comprehensive data on early production is currently only obtainable from old newspapers and documents. Until that data is compiled and published, attempts to identify or “de-select” early films will fail. Acquisition officers will be unable to recognize important films offered to them. More films will be lost through incorrect identification. Pat Laughren at Griffith University (Brisbane) organized funding for this series’ assemblage of production data from collections and libraries all over the world. The first volume of A C om plete Australian Film ography will follow, listing all known productions to indicate possible survivals. Some survivals are surprising. Other films are lost where their survival might be expected. For example, one might assume that Sydney’s early film output would have been prolific, with abundant survivals. In fact, our early film industry was based in Melbourne. Only one continuously active producer operated in Sydney during the 1890s5, and his output is lost. The earliest surviving Sydney film, covering federa tion festivities in 19016, was shot by Melbourne’s Salvation Army Limelight Department. Many early Melbourne movies survive, though not always in film form. Some are printed as sample strips in books, or as sections filed for copyright registration. Thwaites and Harvie’s 1897 films were distributed as flip-card novelties. Others survive only as “mutoscope” flip-card reels in fairground peepshows. More than half of Queensland’s surprisingly prolific 1890s film output survives. It will be covered in C inem a P apers’ forthcoming Queensland issue. Meanwhile, this article continues to assemble the record of Australian production in Melbourne and Sydney. T h w a it e s a n d H a r v ie FIRST IN D IG E N O U S P R O D U C E R S Before 1897, all of the known Australian films were shot by the visiting French cameraman Marius Sestier. Our first indigenous producer was Ernest Jardine Thwaites (1 8 7 3 -1 9 3 3 ), a gifted but shy inventor whose mechanical skill matched his fascination with new technology. At the age of nineteen he constructed one of the earliest Australian-made phonographs at the Melbourne Working
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