Cast
- Hay Simpson (Leslie Hay-Simpson) as Ned Kelly [3]
- John Appleton as Dan Kelly
- Norman Wait as Joe Byrne
- Robert Inglis as Steve Hart
- Regena Somerville as Kate Kelly [3]
| When the Kellys Rode | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Harry Southwell |
| Written by | Harry Southwell |
| Starring | Hay Simpson |
| Cinematography | Tasman Higgins |
Production company | Imperial Feature Films |
| Distributed by | British Empire Films |
Release dates | August 1934 (NZ) October 1934 (Australia) June 1948 (re-release) |
| Country | Australia |
| Budget | £10,000 [1] or £8,000 [2] |
| Box office | £750 [2] |
When the Kellys Rode is a 1934 Australian film directed by Harry Southwell about Ned Kelly.
The story of Ned Kelly and his gang. A policeman comes to arrest Dan Kelly, which results in him being shot and Ned Kelly going on the run with his gang. They rob several banks but are captured and killed at the Glenrowan Hotel.
The film was produced by Imperial Films which was incorporated in 1933 with a capital of £20,000. [4]
Southwell had planned to call the film The Kelly Gang, but the Commonwealth censor objected to the use of the word gang in the title. [5]
It was filmed on location in the Megalong Valley in the Blue Mountains and in Cinesound's Studio at Rushcutter's Bay. Southwell hired a crew from Cinesound Productions. [6]
The film is considered to be first adaptation of the Kelly story with sound. [7]
The film was forbidden from being exhibited in New South Wales for more than ten years under the ban on bushranging films. [8] The government thought that the film glorified bushrangers, and showed the police in a bad light. [9] The filmmakers protested but were unsuccessful. [10] However the movie was passed, with cuts, for screening in Victoria and other states. [11] [12]
Critical response was unenthusiastic. [13] The film performed poorly at the box office and only returned £750 of which £500 went to the producers. [2]
The ban was lifted in 1942 [14] and the film was re-released in 1948. [15] [16]
Leslie Hay-Simpson, a Sydney solicitor, who played Ned Kelly, was later lost at sea between Lord Howe Island and Sydney. He had been on Lord Howe Island during October 1936, acting in Mystery Island , a Paramount Pictures film directed by J. A. Lipman. [17]
The Story of the Kelly Gang is a 1906 Australian Bushranger film directed by Charles Tait. It traces the exploits of 19th-century bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang, with the film being shot in and around Melbourne. The original cut of this silent film ran for more than an hour with a reel length of about 1,200 metres (4,000 ft), making it the longest narrative film yet seen in the world. It premiered at Melbourne's Athenaeum Hall on 26 December 1906 and was first shown in the United Kingdom in January 1908. A commercial and critical success, it is regarded as the origin point of the bushranging drama, a genre that dominated the early years of Australian film production. Since its release, many other films have been made about the Kelly legend.
Matthew Brady was an English-born convict who became a bushranger in Van Diemen's Land. He was sometimes known as "Gentleman Brady" due to his good treatment and fine manners when robbing his victims.
The Kelly Gang is an Australian feature-length film about the Australian bush ranger, Ned Kelly. The film was released in 1920, and is the second film to be based on the life of Ned Kelly, the first being The Story of the Kelly Gang, released in 1906.
Henry Johnson, better known by his alias Harry Power, was an Irish-born convict who became a bushranger in Australia. From 1869 to 1870, he was accompanied by a young Ned Kelly, who went on to become Australia's best known bushranger.
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.
The Squatter's Daughter is a 1933 Australian melodrama directed by Ken G. Hall and starring Jocelyn Howarth. One of the most popular Australian films of the 1930s, it is based on a 1907 play by Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan which had been previously adapted to the screen in 1910.
The Silence of Dean Maitland is a 1934 Australian film directed by Ken G. Hall, and based on Maxwell Gray's 1886 novel of the same name. It was one of the most popular Australian films of the 1930s.
Grandad Rudd is a 1935 comedy featuring the Dad and Dave characters created by Steele Rudd and based on a play by Rudd. It was a sequel to On Our Selection, and was later followed by Dad and Dave Come to Town and Dad Rudd, MP.
The Glenrowan Affair is a 1951 movie about Ned Kelly from director Rupert Kathner. It was Kathner's final film and stars VFL star Bob Chitty as Kelly. It is considered one of the worst films ever made in Australia.
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.
The Man They Could Not Hang is a 1934 Australian film directed by Raymond Longford about the life of John Babbacombe Lee, whose story had been filmed previously in 1912 and 1921.
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.
Captain Midnight, the Bush King is a 1911 Australian silent Western film about the fictitious bushranger Captain Midnight. It was the directorial debut of actor Alfred Rolfe. The film is based on the play of same name by W. J. Lincoln and Alfred Dampier. Captain Midnight, the Bush King is now considered lost.
Ned Kelly was a 19th-century Australian bushranger and outlaw whose life has inspired numerous works in the arts and popular culture, especially in his home country, where he is viewed by some as a Robin Hood-like figure.
Rushcutters Bay Studio was an Australian film studio built by Charles Cozens Spencer in 1912 at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney.
The bushranger ban was a ban on films about bushrangers that came in effect in Australia in 1911–12. Films about bushrangers had been the most popular genre of local films ever since The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Governments were worried about the influence this would have on the population and bans against films depicting bushrangers were introduced in South Australia (1911), New South Wales and Victoria (1912).
The Kelly Gang; or the Career of the Outlaw, Ned Kelly, the Iron-clad Bushranger of Australia is an 1899 Australian play about bushranger Ned Kelly. It is attributed to Arnold Denham but it is likely a number of other writers worked on it.
Edward Irham Cole was an Australian theatrical entrepreneur and film director whose productions represented a synthesis of Wild West show and stage melodrama. He managed a theatre company, called the Bohemian Dramatic Company, that performed in semi-permanent and temporary tent theatres. During 1910 and 1911 Cole directed a number of silent films, adapted from his stage plays and using actors from his theatre company.
Frank Coffey was an Australian author, cameraman, director, and screenwriter who worked mostly on the production of documentaries. For a number of years, he was in-house writer for Cinesound Productions.
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