Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film
During World War I, the first American film exchanges in
Australia opened, and they consolidated their control
throughout the 1920s. With the exception of Hercules
McIntyre at Universal, who financed a number of films
directed by Charles Chauvel (1897–1959), including In
the Wake of the Bounty (1933), Forty Thousand Horsemen
(1940), and Sons of Matthew (1949), the American companies showed little interest in Australian films and production
was sporadic. Consequently, many Australians, such as
Louise Carbasse (1895–1980), who achieved stardom as
Louise Lovely, the swimmer Annette Kellerman (1887–
1975), John Gavin, Snub Pollard (1889–1962), Billy
Bevan (1887–1957), Arthur Shirley (1887–1967), and
Clyde Cook (1891–1984) enjoyed success in Hollywood.
Although strong patriotic feelings during World
War I encouraged the production of propaganda films
such as The Hero of the Dardanelles (1915), Within Our
Gates, or Deeds That Won Gallipoli (1915), and The
Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell (1916), the American domination continued. Before 1914 less than half of films
screened in Australia were American; by 1923 the figure
had grown to 94 percent. Yet the Australian cinema
matured during this period and filmmakers such as
Raymond Longford (1878–1959) and Franklyn Barrett
(1874–1964) produced their finest films. Longford, in
collaboration with his long-term partner Lottie Lyell
(1890–1925), directed The Woman Suffers (1918), The
Sentimental Bloke (1919), Ginger Mick (1920), On Our
Selection (1920), Rudd’s New Selection (1921), The Blue
Mountains Mystery (1921), co-directed by Lyell, and The
Dinkum Bloke (1923). Barrett, who shared Longford’s
interest in distinctly Australian stories, captured the harsh
qualities of the Australian outback in films such as The
Breaking of the Drought (1920) and A Girl of the Bush
(1921). However, adequate distribution and financing
was a perennial problem and Barrett, for example, retired
from production in 1922 to concentrate on exhibition in
Sydney and Canberra.
Another perennial problem concerned the content of
the films. Should Australian films, such as The Breaking
of the Drought, focus only on recognizably Australian
stories and themes, or should they be more universal in
the hope that they might appeal to overseas, primarily
American, audiences? A concerted effort in the latter
direction occurred in 1919, when the actor Reginald
‘‘Snowy’’ Baker (1884–1953) formed a production company with exhibitor E. J. Carroll and his brother Daniel
to produce films at their newly renovated Palmerston
Studios in Sydney. To this end they imported the
American husband-and-wife filmmakers, the director
Wilfred Lucas (1871–1940) and the screenwriter Bess
Meredyth (1890–1969), together with the American
actress Brownie Vernon (1895–1948), the Hollywood cinematographer Robert Doerrer, and the production assistant John K. Wells to make three films starring Baker:
The Man from Kangaroo (1920), The Shadow of Lightning
Ridge (1920), and The Jackeroo of Coolabong (1920).
Although these films were attacked by the local critics for
their ‘‘Americanisms,’’ Australian audiences flocked to
them, and they were subsequently reedited and retitled
for the American market. After the completion of The
Jackeroo of Coolabong, Baker left Australia with Lucas and
Meredyth and enjoyed a modest career in a series of westerns and action films in Hollywood in the 1920s.
The importance of the American market was also a
crucial factor in removing Raymond Longford from For
the Term of His Natural Life (1927), a film he had
been preparing for Australasian Films. In the hope of improving American sales, Longford was asked to step
aside in favor of the visiting American director Norman
Dawn (1884–1975). Dawn then proceeded to hire the
American cameraman Len Roos and the Hollywood
actors George Fisher (1891–1960) and Eva Novak
(1898–1988) as the budget escalated to fifty thousand
pounds, twenty times the cost of the average Australian
film. Released in June 1927, For the Term of His Natural
Life was an immediate success in Australia but, partly due
to the arrival of sound, failed in America.