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Below the Surface (1938 film)

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Below the Surface
Directed byRupert Kathner
Screenplay byRupert Kathner
Story byStan Tolhurst
Produced byRupert Kathner
StarringStan Tolhurst
CinematographyTasman Higgins
Edited byStan Tolhurst
Production
company
Australian Cinema Entertainments
Release date
  • 1938 (1938)
Running time
55 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish

Below the Surface is a 1938 adventure film set in the coal region of Newcastle, Australia. Only part of the movie survives.

Plot

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Two miners compete for an important coal contract. One of them attempts to sabotage the other but fails.

Cast

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  • Stan Tolhurst
  • Phyllis Reilly
  • Neil Carlton
  • Jimmy McMahon
  • Lawrence Taylor
  • Reg King
  • Billy Baker
  • Leonard Clarke
  • Frank Baker
  • Billy Crooks

Production

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The main investor in the movie was a prominent music house in Sydney. The film was shot on location in Cronulla, Sydney and Newcastle, with studio work done at Pagewood Studios.[1][2] Kather and Tolhurt built a mine set themselves. Shooting took place from November 1937 to February 1938.[3]

Release

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Like Kathner's first movie, Phantom Gold (1937), it was refused to be considered eligible for registration under the New South Wales Film Quota Act on the grounds of poor quality.[3]

The film was never released to cinemas, the only one of Kather's movies to suffer this fate.[4]

In February 1938 Australian Cinema Entertainments announced plans to make four more features that year for £40,000, the first which was to be Diamonds in the Rough.[5] This did not eventuate. Tolhurst did revive the name with his company, ACE Films, in the late 1940s.[6]

References

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  1. ^ "MINERS' SONS". The Sydney Morning Herald. 10 January 1938. p. 11. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. ^ "AUSTRALIAN FILM". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 December 1937. p. 9. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ a b Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 184
  4. ^ Graham Shirley and Brian Adams, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years, Currency Press, 1989, p151
  5. ^ "AUSTRALIAN FILMS". The Sydney Morning Herald. 3 February 1938. p. 8. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ "Ambitious film project by Australians". The Australian Women's Weekly. 27 September 1947. p. 40. Retrieved 15 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
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