The Sentimental Bloke
Encyclopedia
The Sentimental Bloke (1919
) is an Australia
n silent film
based on the 1915 poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
by C.J. Dennis.
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
.
Tauchert plays Bill, 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.
Lyell is thought to have co-authored the screenplay
, written the titles, edited the film and helped with the direction.
The Sentimental Bloke uses intertitle
s 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intertitles, having some scenes cut out, and being renamed for the American market as The Story of a Tough Guy, it was withdrawn from distribution.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 remake in 1932 using the latest sound recording equipment from the United States. It was directed by the prolific actor and partner of Hoyts
, Frank Thring
although did not fare as well as the original.
Lyell died of tuberculosis
in 1925, and Longford's film-making career stated to decline—he remarried in 1933 and years later was found to be working as a night watchman
on the Sydney wharfs. He died on 2 April 1959.
and at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival
.
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.
1919 in film
The year 1919 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 5 - Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists...
) is an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
based on the 1915 poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke is a verse novel by Australian novelist and poet C. J. Dennis. The book sold over 60,000 copies in nine editions within the first year, and is probably one of the highest selling verse novels ever published in Australia....
by C.J. Dennis.
The film, from the Southern Cross Feature Film Company of Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, was made by Raymond Longford
Raymond Longford
Raymond Longford was a prolific Australian film director, writer, producer and actor during the silent era. Longford was a major director of the silent film era of the Australian cinema. He formed a production team with Lottie Lyell...
and Lottie Lyell
Lottie Lyell
Lottie Lyell was an Australian actress, screenwriter, editor and filmmaker born in Balmain, Sydney in 1890. She is regarded as Australia’s first film star, and also contributed to the local industry during the silent era with her collaborations with Raymond Longford.-Career:Charlotte Cox pursued...
, at that time the best known partnership in Australian cinema. It starred Lyell and the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
Arthur Tauchert
Arthur Tauchert
Arthur Michael Tauchert was an Australian actor best known for playing the title role in The Sentimental Bloke , which made him one of the most popular Australian screen stars of the 1920s...
and was filmed mainly in the inner city Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
suburb of Woolloomooloo
Woolloomooloo, New South Wales
Woolloomooloo is a harbourside, inner-city eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Woolloomooloo is located 1.5 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney. The suburb is located in a low-lying, former...
.
Tauchert plays Bill, a Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
larrikin
Larrikinism
Larrikinism is the name given to the Australian folk tradition of irreverence, mockery of authority and disregard for rigid norms of propriety. Larrikinism can also be associated with self-deprecating humour.- Etymology :...
, who vows to abandon his life of gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
(playing Two-up
Two-up
Two-up is a traditional Australian gambling game, involving a designated 'Spinner' throwing two or three coins into the air. Players gamble on whether the coins will fall with both heads up, both tails up, or with one coin a head, and one a tail...
) and drinking when he falls in love with Doreen (Lyell), who works in a pickle
Pickled cucumber
A pickled cucumber is a cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or other solution and left to ferment for a period of time, by either immersing the cucumbers in an acidic solution or through souring by lacto-fermentation.-Gherkin:A gherkin is not only...
factory.
Lyell is thought to have co-authored the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
, written the titles, edited the film and helped with the direction.
The Sentimental Bloke uses intertitle
Intertitle
In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...
s taken from the original poem written in Australian slang and was a hit when it opened in Melbourne Town Hall
Melbourne Town Hall
Melbourne Town Hall is the central municipal building of the City of Melbourne, Australia, in the State of Victoria. It is located on the northeast corner of Swanston and Collins Streets, in the central business district. It is the seat of the Local Government Area of the City of Melbourne...
on 4 October 1919, breaking all existing box office records. It was also popular in Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, 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 remake in 1932 using the latest sound recording equipment from the United States. It was directed by the prolific actor and partner of Hoyts
Hoyts
The Hoyts Group is an Australian company consisting of Hoyts Exhibition, Hoyts Distribution and Val Morgan.Hoyts Exhibition manages 450 screens across 40 Australian and 10 New Zealand cinema complexes; making it Australia's second largest cinema chain. Val Morgan, the cinema advertising arm of the...
, Frank Thring
Frank Thring
Frank William Thring was an Australian character actor.-Early life:Thring was born in Melbourne and educated at the Melbourne Grammar School. His father, Frank W. Thring, was the head of Efftee Studios, in Melbourne, in the 1920s, and is said to be the inventor of the clapperboard...
although did not fare as well as the original.
Lyell died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in 1925, and Longford's film-making career stated to decline—he remarried in 1933 and years later was found to be working as a night watchman
Security guard
A security guard is a person who is paid to protect property, assets, or people. Security guards are usually privately and formally employed personnel...
on the Sydney wharfs. He died on 2 April 1959.
Rediscovery
A 1952 fire in a Melbourne film library destroyed all but two boxes of film archives. 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 FestivalSydney Film Festival
The Sydney Film Festival is an annual film festival held in the Australian city of Sydney and is held over 12 days in June. The competitive film festival draws international and local attention, with films being showcased in several venues across the city centre and includes features,...
and at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival
1987 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Yves Montand*Danièle Heymann*Elem Klimov*Gérald Calderon*Jeremy Thomas*Jerzy Skolimowski*Nicola Piovani*Norman Mailer*Theo Angelopoulos-Feature film competition:...
.
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
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. 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
Sydney Film Festival
The Sydney Film Festival is an annual film festival held in the Australian city of Sydney and is held over 12 days in June. The competitive film festival draws international and local attention, with films being showcased in several venues across the city centre and includes features,...
and has played at the 2005 London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
. It has since been released as a two DVD set which includes a booklet describing the film's history.
See also
- Cinema of AustraliaCinema of AustraliaCinema of Australia, more commonly referred to as the Australian film industry, refers to the system of production, distribution, and exhibition of films in Australia. Film production commenced in Australia in 1906 with the production of The Story of the Kelly Gang, the earliest feature film made...
- List of films based on poems
- Albert ArlenAlbert ArlenAlbert Arlen AM was a Turkish Australian pianist, composer, actor and playwright. He is best known for his musical The Sentimental Bloke , the "Alamein Concerto", and his setting of Banjo Paterson’s Clancy of the Overflow.-Biography:Albert Aarons was born in Sydney in 1905 to Turkish immigrants...
- composer of The Sentimental Bloke musical
External links
- 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 AustraliaNational Library of AustraliaThe National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
- Ina Bertrand, Raymond Longford’s The Sentimental Bloke: The Restored Version, Screening the Past.