The Sentimental Bloke
| The Sentimental Bloke | |
|---|---|
 Arthur Tauchert, in The Sentimental Bloke |
|
| Directed by | Raymond Longford |
| Produced by | Raymond Longford |
| Written by | C.J. Dennis (poem) Raymond Longford Lottie Lyell |
| Starring | Arthur Tauchert Lottie Lyell |
| Cinematography | Arthur Higgins |
| Release date(s) | 1919 |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
| Budget | ₤2,000[1] |
The Sentimental Bloke (1919) is an Australian silent film based on the 1915 poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis.
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[edit] Production
The film, from the Southern Cross Feature Film Company of Adelaide, was made by Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell, at that time the best known partnership in Australian cinema. It starred Lyell and the vaudeville comedian Arthur Tauchert and was filmed mainly in the inner city Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo.
Lyell is thought to have co-authored the screenplay, written the titles, edited the film and helped with the direction.
[edit] Plot
Bill (Tauchert) is a Melbourne larrikin, who vows to abandon his life of gambling (playing Two-up) and drinking when he falls in love with Doreen (Lyell), who works in a pickle factory.
[edit] Reception
The Sentimental Bloke uses intertitles taken from the original poem written in Australian slang and was a hit when it opened in Melbourne Town Hall on 4 October 1919, breaking all existing box office records. It was also popular in Britain and New Zealand, but did not succeed in the U.S., where test audiences failed to understand the language. Despite being recut with Americanised intertitles, having some scenes cut out, and being renamed for the American market as The Story of a Tough Guy, it was withdrawn from distribution.
The initial success of The Sentimental Bloke prompted a sequel in 1920, Ginger Mick, and a remake in 1932 using the latest sound recording equipment from the United States. The sequel was a hit but the remake, although directed by the prolific actor and partner of Hoyts, F. W. Thring, did not fare as well as the original.
[edit] Rediscovery
A 1952 fire in a Melbourne film library destroyed all but two boxes of film archives.[2] The boxes revealed a complete 35mm nitrate positive of The Sentimental Bloke, which the following year were sent to a Sydney laboratory for duplication on to new 16mm acetate stock. The original nitrate copies were believed to have been destroyed in the 1960s. The new print was screened at the 1955 Sydney Film Festival and at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[3]
An original 35mm negative of the film was discovered in 1973 at the Film Archive at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York. The canisters had been mislabelled as The Sentimental Blonde but were discovered by luck. The film was the U.S. version which had some scenes deleted and included intertitles for the American audience. It was however, a better quality print than any of the Australian copies, and provided a base for a complete restoration.
The National Film and Sound Archive commenced on a full restoration project for the film in 2000 using the various pieces of archive material available. The project included colour tinting as close as possible to the original. This 'new' version premiered at the 2004 Sydney Film Festival and has played at the 2005 London Film Festival. It has since been released as a two DVD set which includes a booklet describing the film's history.
[edit] Cast
- Arthur Tauchert as Bill, the Bloke
- Lotte Lyell as Doreen
- Gilbert Emery
[edit] See also
- Cinema of Australia
- List of films based on poems
- Albert Arlen - composer of The Sentimental Bloke musical
[edit] References
- ^ "£100,000 SPENT." Advocate (Burnie, Tas) 5 Jan 1928: 6 accessed 6 Dec 2011
- ^ Dominic Case. "3.2". Raymond Longford's Sentimental Bloke. National Film and Sound Archive. pp. 67–75.
- ^ "Festival de Cannes: The Sentimental Bloke". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/476/year/1987.html. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
[edit] External links
- The Sentimental Bloke at the Internet Movie Database
- The Sentimental Bloke is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- Raymond Longford & Lottie Lyell by William M. Drew
- The Sentimental Bloke at the National Film and Sound Archive
- The Sentimental Bloke at National Library of Australia
- Ina Bertrand, Raymond Longford’s The Sentimental Bloke: The Restored Version, Screening the Past.
