When the Kellys Rode

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When the Kellys Rode
Directed byHarry Southwell
Written byHarry Southwell
StarringHay Simpson
CinematographyTasman Higgins
Production
company
Imperial Feature Films
Distributed byBritish Empire Films
Release dates
  • August 1934 (1934-08) (NZ)
  • October 1934 (1934-10) (Australia)
  • June 1948 (1948-06) (re-release)
CountryAustralia
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.

File:When the Kellys Rode film poster undated c 1934.jpg
Poster for the Australian film When the Kellys Rode undated c 1934 Collection State Library Victoria

Production

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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]

Release

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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]

References

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  1. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  2. ^ a b c "Counting the Cash in Australian Films"', Everyones 12 December 1934 p 19-20
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  7. ^ Essay "Films on Ned Kelly" by Justin Corfield, first published in 2003 in "The Ned Kelly Encyclopaedia"
  8. ^ Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 166.
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