AustLit

A Pacific Island romance, The Adorable Outcast follows Stephen Conn, an adventurer who is in love with a beautiful young native woman named Luya. When a rumour surfaces suggesting that Conn has a hoard of gold hidden away, an evil blackbirder, Fursey, kidnaps Luya as a ransom. Conn enlists the aid of Luya's tribal members to help him get her back, and they subsequently attack Fursey and his fellow traders at their stronghold. After freeing his love, Conn is made aware that her parents were actually white-skinned. This allows them to unite.

'"The Grey Glove", an Australian production released by J.C. Williamson Films features the charming and talented Miss Lassau. This is Miss Lassau's first appearance upon the screen and her acting is all that could be desired. She portrays a young society girl who, in her spare moments, is a detective. It is through her efforts that a notorious criminal known in the world as the "Grey Glove" is captured.'

Source:

'Paramount To-night', Townsville Daily Bulletin, 30 May 1929, p.10.

Based on Marcus Clarke's classic novel, originally published in 1870 as His Natural Life, the story tells of convict Rufus Dawes, who has been wrongfully accused of a crime and sent to the penal colony of Van Diemen's Land for the term of his natural life. In his attempts to escape the colony, Dawes falls in love with Sylvia (a warden's daughter) and confronts his sinister lookalike John Rex and the evil convict Gabbett.

American director/screenwriter Norman Dawn's adaptation strays from the original book considerably. For example, the ending sees the fate of Rufus and Sylvia, adrift on a raft in the ocean, left in the balance, whereas Clarke's original story has the pair drown. However, the film retains a strong, visual style, especially in climactic crowd scenes.

This story of a settler and his wife living in the Gippsland bush, the second film to have been made of Pritchard's novel in the ten years since its publication, is one of Australia's 'lost films'.

According to the Camperdown Chronicle (Tuesday 29 June 1926, p.4):

'When Katharine Susannah Prichard won the 1000 pounds offered by Hodder and Stoughton for a prize novel, she incidentally furnished the screen with a vivid and realistic pictorial version of the struggles and hardships of the early pioneers who laid the foundations of the Australia of to-day. "The Pioneers" which has been described by the New York "Bookview" as a truthful picture of the time it depicts, has been filmed in the cattle country on the North Coast of New South Wales and under the guidance of Director Longford--remembered for his production of "The Sentimental Bloke," the atmosphere of this typical Australian story has been transferred in all its realistic detail to the silver sheet.'

'Jim Blake, whom everyone thought had been killed at the war, returns after a ten years' absence, and finds a feud existing between the people of Twin Hills, his old home, and Deep Wells, the Ridgeway holding-—a rather one-sided feud, though, for Jim's brother and sister, assisted by two faithful henchmen, are struggling hard to hold their own against the machinations of Ridgeway and his evil associates. Jim's re-appearance puts a new aspect on affairs, and things move with startling rapidity. There is a splendid love interest. Helen Ridgeway, Jim's playmate as a child, is now a sworn enemy, and the reader follows the changing phases of her mind, as the basic causes of the unfair oppression reveal themselves, with an interest which the wealth of exciting happenings never allows to flag.'

Source:

'The Hills of Hate', The World's News, 29 August 1925, p.12. (Via Trove Australia)

After being disowned by his wealthy father following a raucous party, Jack Maxwell goes to work at a mill in the North Coast timber district owned by his friend Dick Desmond. WHile there he falls in love with Betty Manning, the daughter of the widow who cooks for the workers, and clashes with Steve Black, the ganger of the mill who is behind a spate of timber robberies. He is also in love with Betty. When a sundowner arrives in camp and shoots Steve in revenge for seducing the sundowner's wife years ago, he reveals that Steve has been blackmailing Dick's father. Jack also saves the mill from a robbery and is offered a partnership from Desmond.

George Willis lives the life of a hermit in the Australian bush, after losing his unfaithful wife in an accidental fall. A chance encounter with a young girl makes him aware that an old enemy has accused him of murder.

'A clever story takes the audience back to the time of the "Floradora" sextette, and is mainly concerned in the love affairs of two players, Mary Elliot (Zara Clinton) and Courtland Nixon (Rawdon Blahdford). Opportunity has been taken to translate to the screen pleasing studies of Australian girlhood in artistic settings, and among many exciting incidents Is a daring rescue from a burning building.'

Source:

'Britannia Theatre', Table Talk, 27 August 1925, p.20.

A farcical romance set in Sydney high society.

Reviews of it as a film rather than as a fund-raising exercise were not particularly positive:

Cupid Camouflaged has certainly succeeded in swelling the Red Cross funds ; but it is a poor advertisement for the acting talent of the nobility of Sydney. Cupid used to be a lively little cherub ; this camouflaged Cupid has taken a sleeping draught, and can't stay awake. The slight plot is effectively smothered under about a thousand feet of uninteresting fox-trotting and ungraceful acrobatic dancing, under another thousand of garden party, and an endless amount of tea-drinking.

Source:

'At the Movies', The Mirror, 7 June 1918, p.11.

For the Honour of Australia was made for British audiences, by compiling footage from two films (For Australia and How We Beat the Emden) and constructing a new over-arching narrative that presented the protagonists of the two entirely separate films as brothers, living out asynchronous war experiences that only briefly overlap.

Australian Screen Online (see link below) points out that the two films were made by rival companies (J.C. Williamson's and Australasian Films), and there is no current information on who spliced the two films into this new release.

'The famous revolt of the miners against the excessive license fees is made the central incident in a story of romance and intrigue. It commences in England with the departure of Stan Gifford for Australia, to make a fortune that will enable him to marry Violet Howard. Pellow Owen intercepts the letters from Stan, and pressing his attentions on Violet, is present when her father shoots a man in a quarrel at cards, and he uses the incident as a lever to force her to marry him. The marriage is, however, bogue [sic], and Owen throws her off. The scene shifts to the Ballarat diggings, where Stan and Violet again meet, and Owen continues his nefarious practices. The scenes on the goldfields are splendidly pictured, and aroused enthusiasm that reached a high pitch when Peter Lalor is shown leading the uprising of the miners, and the fight In the Stockade takes place. The history of the incidents of the period and the uprising are closely adhered to, so that the picturisation is interesting from this, as well as the spectacular aspects, and the fact that it is an essentially Australian subject.'

Source:

'Imperial Pictures', Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate, 7 January 1916, p.6.

'It was a realistic picture, beginning with the training ship Tingara, on which Australian Jack Tars are made; there is a transfer of a draft from the training ship when war breaks out to the Sydney and Melbourne. One of the lads, coming home wounded from the Emden encounter, re-visiting the Tingara, tells the story of how the Emden was conquered, and the pictures which illustrate this yarn are true to the narrative, and undoubtedly afford a good idea of the fight. Pictures of the Emden after the fight which show how the pirate was smashed, were the last part.'

*Source:'

'Crown Pictures', South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus, 7 January 1916, p.12. (Via Trove Australia)

'The story, is of a hero who enlisted, and his brother, who thought so little of his liberty that he would not defend it. In a series, of wonderful visions, scenes striking him while at the races, surfing or cricket, he saw what thousands were suffering because of those who, like himself, had shirked. Many of the big scenes were taken at Liverpool, and - the men who participated were real soldiers–members of the First Australian Expeditionary Force, now at the Dardanelles. During the screening of this film at the Monarch Pictures to-morrow night Mr. Goodwin will sing "Your King and Country Need You" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary."'

Source:

'Will They Never Come?', The Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 13 July 915, p.2 (via Trove Australia).

'The film is entitled "The Hero of the Dardanelles," and is the second of a series of pictures designed to assist the inducing men to enlist. The life of the soldiers in Liverpool camp is depicted, their subsequent entrainment and embarkation for Eygpt is shown, and "The Hero of the Dardanelles" is followed through the landing on the beach and over the rocky ridges right up to the time of his being wounded. Then he is seen back in Sydney at his wedding.'

Source:

'Hero of the Dardanelles', Cairns Post, 13 September 1915, p.4. (Via Trove Australia)

'The story opens with the reading of a will, whereby a fortune is left to the heroine on condition that she marries one of two cousins. These two men are the hero and villain respectively. The latter succeeds in disgracing his rival in the eyes of the girl, whereupon she marries the villain. The innocent man emigrates to Australia, and it is there that the most interesting and dramatic events of the story occur. Some years later the heroine takes ill, and is accompanied by her husband on a health trip to Australia. While making the final stages of the journey in a coach they are held up by bushrangers. The man and his wife escape, but get lost in the bush. After wandering about for days they are overcome by exhaustion. The villain leaves the heroine to die in a dust storm, and struggles on. He eventually arrives at the hut of his cousin, and is taken in and revived by a girl who in reality is his own daughter — the daughter of a previous marriage. The heroine is picked up by her old lover, and is also taken to the hut. Then the climax is reached. After confessing to the wrongs he did the hero, the villain dies. The reader can imagine the rest. Although the long arm of coincidence is stretched to its extreme, the plot is good, and throbs with dramatic incidents.'

Source:

'Shepherd of the Southern Cross', Sunday Times, 14 June 1914, p.6.