Strong is the Seed | |
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Directed by | Arthur Greville Collins |
Written by | Ru Pullan |
Based on | radio play The Golden Legacy by Helen Bousfield |
Produced by | Arthur Greville Collins |
Starring | Guy Doleman |
Cinematography | Ross Wood |
Edited by | William Shepherd |
Music by | Henry Krips |
Production company | Collins Productions |
Distributed by |
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Release date | 4 March 1949 [1] |
Running time |
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Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Budget | £20,000 [2] [3] |
Strong is the Seed (also known as The Farrer Story) is a 1949 Australian drama film, about the life of agronomist and plant breeder William Farrer.
English agriculture scientist William Farrer, on a health trip to Australia, advises his friends (Ossie Wenban, Queenie Ashton) to invest money in wheat farming. In a hotel in Queanbeyan, Farrer hears that rust is playing havoc with farmers' crops, and his friends, who were ruined, have both just committed suicide. Searching for a cure for rust, Farrer meets Nina De Salis, daughter of a politician. They fall in love and get married, though her father strongly disapproves.
Nina and Farrer cross strains of strong wheat at an experimental farm. Farrer is encouraged by government scientist Dr. Guthrie. However farmers plot to burn his farm and millers will not grind new strains of wheat from Farrer for flour. Farrer keeps at his work and inherits money from relatives in England. He is finally recognised for his achievements, hands over his work to his young assistant (Eric Wright), and soon afterwards he collapses and dies in his office. [4]
Helen Bousfield wrote a radio play about the life of William Farrer, The Golden Legacy. [5] [6]
In 1947 a prospectus was issued for the Arthur Collins Film Corporation, seeking to raise finance to make a film of this play. The company also announced intentions to make three more films a year. [7]
The film was shot in and around Bathurst, New South Wales and Minto, New South Wales and in a studio at the Sydney Showground from November 1947, with shooting taking six weeks. [8] Henry Krips composed the music. [9]
The film was intended to be released in July 1948 at the same time as a stamp commemorating Farrer. [10] However, although post-production had been completed by June, [11] [12] reactions at previews indicated the film was not up to standard for commercial release – director Harry Watt, then in Australia making Eureka Stockade (1949), saw it and called the film "the all-time low in horrible amateurism". [13]
Several scenes were deleted, new ones shot, and a new soundtrack and music score added. [2] The film still failed to find distribution and the production company released the film themselves by hiring a theatre in Adelaide in March 1949. [14] Box office receipts and reviews were poor, [15] although it did achieve release in the UK in a much shortened version.
The film was re-released in Australia in 1952, greatly shortened, as The Farrer Story. [16]
Scott of the Antarctic is a 1948 British adventure film starring John Mills as Robert Falcon Scott in his ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole. The film more or less faithfully recreates the events that befell the Terra Nova Expedition in 1912.
Margaret Mary Day Lockwood, CBE, was an English actress. One of Britain's most popular film stars of the 1930s and 1940s, her film appearances included The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), The Man in Grey (1943), and The Wicked Lady (1945). She was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for the 1955 film Cast a Dark Shadow. She also starred in the television series Justice (1971–74).
Betty Evelyn Box was a prolific British film producer, usually credited as Betty E. Box.
Ronald Egan Randell was an Australian actor. After beginning his acting career on the stage in 1937, he played Charles Kingsford Smith in the film Smithy (1946). He also had roles in Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947), Kiss Me Kate (1953), I Am a Camera (1955), Most Dangerous Man Alive (1961) and King of Kings (1961).
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.
Ronald Grant Taylor was an English-Australian actor best known as the abrasive General Henderson in the Gerry Anderson science fiction series UFO and for his lead role in Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940).
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.
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Eureka Stockade is a 1949 British film of the story surrounding Irish-Australian rebel and politician Peter Lalor and the gold miners' rebellion of 1854 at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria, in the Australian Western genre.
Patricia Roc was an English film actress, popular in the Gainsborough melodramas such as Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) and The Wicked Lady (1945), though she only made one film in Hollywood, Canyon Passage (1946). She also appeared in Millions Like Us (1943), Jassy (1945), The Brothers (1947) and When the Bough Breaks (1947).
Arthur Greville Collins was a British-born film director.
Bitter Springs is a 1950 Australian–British film directed by Ralph Smart. An Australian pioneer family leases a piece of land from the government in the Australian outback in 1900 and hires two inexperienced British men as drovers. Problems with local Aboriginal people arise over the possession of a waterhole. Much of the film was shot on location in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia
Obsession, released in the United States as The Hidden Room, is a 1949 British crime film directed by Edward Dmytryk. It is based on the 1947 novel A Man About a Dog by Alec Coppel, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Obsession was entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival.
Sons of Matthew is a 1949 Australian film directed and produced and co-written by Charles Chauvel. The film was shot in 1947 on location in Queensland, Australia, and the studio sequences in Sydney. Sons of Matthew took 18 months to complete, but it was a great success with Australian audiences when it finally opened in December 1949.
Ethel Muriel Ashton, known professionally as Queenie Ashton, was a character actress, born in England, who had a long career in Australia as a theatre performer and radio personality, best known for her radio and television soap opera roles, although she did also feature briefly in films.
Lambrigg is an historical property close to Tharwa in the Australian Capital Territory which is listed by the ACT Heritage Council as a place of historical significance. It was the residence of William James Farrer who made a major contribution to the wheat industry by developing a strain of wheat that was resistant to wheat rust. Lambrigg was the site where Farrer conducted his work on genetic selection for his wheat varieties.
Cardboard Cavalier is a 1948 British historical comedy film directed by Walter Forde and starring Sid Field, Margaret Lockwood and Jerry Desmonde.
Always Another Dawn is a 1948 Australian wartime melodrama directed by T.O. McCreadie. It was the first leading role for Bud Tingwell.
Tom McCreadie (1907–1992), better known as T. O. McCreadie was an Australian film director and producer, who was also involved in distribution and exhibition for many years.
Rex Rienits was an Australian writer of radio, films, plays and TV. He was a journalist before becoming one of the leading radio writers in Australia. He moved to England in 1949 and worked for a number of years there. He later returned to Australia and worked on early local TV drama.