Some surviving fragments of the world's first feature length narrative film. Heavily decomposed

What the posters said:
"A thrilling moving picture from start to finish"
"The Most Sensational, The Most Thrilling and Interesting LIVING PICTURES EVER TAKEN."

Written and Directed by Charles Tait 1868-1933

Released:
December 1906 (Australia)
January 1908 (Britain)
1910 (USA)

Special contents of this edition copyright 2009 Shane I Sullivan. Permission to use these items is granted under creative commons licence.


This movie is part of the collection: The Video Cellar Collection

Producer: Charles Tait
Production Company: Johnson and Gibson
Audio/Visual: Silent, B/W
Keywords: Australia; Bushrangers; Ned Kelly; Silent Film; Early Features; Lost Films; Fragments
Contact Information: The Video Cellar

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Individual Files

Write a review
Downloaded 3,981 times Reviews
Average Rating:

Reviewer: simplertimes - - October 22, 2012
Subject: NED KELLY
What a wonderful thing to be able to view this footage.Great Stuff, Thankyou !!!!

Reviewer: Mehoo - - June 12, 2012
Subject: Amazing
Despite the horrid condition of the film, this has to be one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in a video. Now all I have to do is watch the whole movie.

Reviewer: TeddyMafia - - January 23, 2011
Subject: We need more Aussie Public Domain material..
I cannot tell you how happy I am to stumble across this fine piece of work from Australia. I would like to see a lot more material made in Australia posted on archive.org.. Thank you for submitting this piece..

Reviewer: jonc - - November 3, 2010
Subject: Great find
This would seem to be beyond restoration, but who knows? Technology can do some amazing things. It's great to see what has survived of it. This could be valuable down the line, as the original film slowly continues to decay.

Reviewer: Junter - - November 1, 2010
Subject: Fillmore East
Great movie but I thought I was at the Fillmore East with that lightshow.great to see this footage from Australia.Thanks Gary

Reviewer: cosmico - - March 12, 2010
Subject: Wow
This is really fascinating to see, despite (or partly because of?) the condition of the film footage, which gives it a dreamlike quality .

The filmmaking technique, the camera angles and staging, seems pretty advanced for 1906, especially during the exterior scenes. Bravo to Mr. Tait!

Many thanks to V-C for uploading this rare gem!

Reviewer: Classic_TV_and_Radio_Fan - - March 1, 2010
Subject: Heavily decomposed, but worth seeing
So little exists of early Australian cinema, that those interested in the subject cannot be picky. This footage here is is poor shape, but watchable, even scary, and the music suits the upload well (something that cannot be said about all silent films on the Internet Archive).

"A thrilling moving picture from start to finish" was probably utterly true, judging by those amazing bits of footage from the feature-movie.