Down Under (1927 film)

Last updated

Down Under
Directed by Harry Southwell
StarringHarry Southwell
Nancy Mills
Cinematography Lacey Percival
Cliff Thomas
Production
company
Anglo-Australian Films
Release dates
  • 22 March 1927 (1927-03-22)(premiere) [1]
  • 4 September 1929 (1929-09-04) [2]
CountryAustralia
Languages Silent film
English intertitles

Down Under is an Australian feature-length film directed by Harry Southwell. It was the first full-length feature film made in Western Australia. [3] It featured the outback, as well as Perth and Kings Park.

Contents

Plot

An Australian vagabond, Walter Nobbage, has a series of adventures, including a trotting race meeting, a cattle muster and an aboriginal corroboree. Nobbage's sweetheart dies and he sacrifices his life for the safe her his dead sweetheart's little boy. [4]

Cast

Production

The film was financed by West Australian businessmen and shot in that state at Erlistoun Station, Laverton and Perth. [6] [7]

Southwell claimed at the time he had a contract to make six films for distribution in Britain. [8]

It was the first and only production of Anglo-Australian Films. [9]

Release

It premiered on 4 September 1929 in Perth at the Majestic Theatre. [3] The film appears never to have received a commercial release in Britain [9]

Southwell attempted to set up another company in Australia, Western Southwell Productions, aiming to make a £4,000 movie called Gold. This film was never made. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coolgardie–Esperance Highway</span> Highway in Western Australia

Coolgardie–Esperance Highway is a 370-kilometre (230 mi) Western Australian highway between Coolgardie and Esperance. It runs in a north–south direction linking the state's Eastern Goldfields to the coast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Farrow</span> Australian film director (1904–1963)

John Villiers Farrow, KGCHS was an Australian film director, producer, and screenwriter. Spending a considerable amount of his career in the United States, in 1942 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Wake Island, and in 1957 he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Around the World in Eighty Days. He had seven children by his wife, actress Maureen O'Sullivan, including actress Mia Farrow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinesound Productions</span> Australian film production company

Cinesound Productions Pty Ltd was an Australian feature film production company. Established in June 1931, Cinesound developed out of a group of companies centred on Greater Union Theatres that covered all facets of the film process, from production to distribution and exhibition. Cinesound Productions established a film studio as a subsidiary of Greater Union Theatres Pty Ltd based on the Hollywood model. The first production was On Our Selection (1932), which was an enormous financial success.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claremont Oval</span> Football stadium in Perth, Western Australia

Claremont Oval, also known by naming rights sponsorship as Revo Fitness Stadium, is an Australian rules football stadium located in Perth, Western Australia. The stadium, opened in 1905 as "Claremont Recreation Ground", seats 5,000. It is the home of the Claremont Football Club, an Australian rules football club that plays in the Western Australian Football League (WAFL), the state's premier Australian rules competition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Longden</span> English actor (1900–1971)

John Longden was a British film actor. He appeared in more than 80 films between 1926 and 1964, including six films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

His Royal Highness is a 1932 Australian musical film directed by F. W. Thring, also known as His Loyal Highness, starring George Wallace in his feature film debut. It was the first Australian film musical.

The Moth of Moonbi is a 1926 Australian film directed by Charles Chauvel. It was adapted from The Wild Moth, a 1924 novel by Australian author Mabel Forrest. It was Queensland's first feature length film

Harry Southwell was an Australian actor, writer and film director best known for making films about Ned Kelly. He was born in Cardiff, Wales and spent a couple of years in America, where he adapted some short stories by O Henry into two reel films. He worked for Vitagraph in the United States for five years, then moved to Australia in 1919, where he used his experience as a screenwriter to impress investors to back him making features. He set up his own production company in Australia but few of his movies were commercially successful.

The Burgomeister is a 1935 Australian film directed by Harry Southwell based on the 1867 play Le juif polonais by Erckmann-Chatrian, adapted into English in 1871 by Leopold Lewis, previously filmed a number of times. The Burgomeister is considered a 'substantially lost' film, with only one sequence surviving.

Frank Gardiner, the King of the Road is a 1911 Australian film about the bushranger Frank Gardiner, played by John Gavin, who also directed. It is considered a lost film.

The Mutiny of the Bounty is a 1916 Australian-New Zealand silent film directed by Raymond Longford about the mutiny aboard HMS Bounty. It is the first known cinematic dramatisation of this story and is considered a lost film.

Kalli Station is a pastoral lease that has operated as both a cattle and sheep station in Western Australia.

When the Kellys Rode is a 1934 Australian film directed by Harry Southwell about Ned Kelly.

When the Kellys Were Out is a 1923 Australian feature-length film directed by Harry Southwell about Ned Kelly. Only part of the film survives today.

<i>The Grey Glove</i> 1928 film

The Grey Glove is a 1928 Australian silent film based on a newspaper serial by E. V. Timms.

The Monk and the Woman is a 1917 Australian silent film directed by Franklyn Barrett. It is considered to be lost.

The Tenth Straw is a 1926 Australian silent film heavily inspired by the novel For the Term of His Natural Life. Little is known of the director and cast, but most of the film survives today.

White City, also known as Cooee City or Ugly Land, was an amusement park that existed on the Perth foreshore in Perth, Western Australia between World War I and 1929.

Erlistoun Station is a pastoral lease that has operated as a cattle station and more recently as a sheep station in Western Australia.

Basil Everal Wharton Kirke was a radio broadcaster and executive with the Australian Broadcasting Commission. He gravitated into this field after a varied career in New South Wales and the Pacific Islands.

References

  1. ""Down Under"". The Daily News . Perth: National Library of Australia. 23 March 1927. p. 2. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  2. "Advertising". The West Australian . Perth: National Library of Australia. 4 September 1929. p. 2. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  3. 1 2 "'Down Under' at Majestic". The Daily News. 4 September 1929. p. 10. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  4. "A Western Australian Film". The West Australian . Perth: National Library of Australia. 18 February 1927. p. 12. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  5. "Pertinent Paragraphs". The Mirror . Perth: National Library of Australia. 18 May 1929. p. 11. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  6. "Film Production". The West Australian . Perth: National Library of Australia. 3 August 1926. p. 8. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  7. "Film Producing in WA". Western Argus . Kalgoorlie, Western Australia: National Library of Australia. 10 August 1926. p. 13. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  8. "West Australian films". Geraldton Guardian . Western Australia: National Library of Australia. 21 August 1926. p. 3. Retrieved 3 August 2012.
  9. 1 2 Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 137.
  10. "The Cinema". The West Australian . Perth: National Library of Australia. 15 October 1927. p. 6. Retrieved 3 August 2012.