The Fatal Wedding

Various figures have been given for the budget - the earliest report said it was more than £500.[15]

Shooting took place largely in an artist's studio in Bondi with a roof taken off and six foot reflectors used to improve the lighting.[5] Longford claimed it was the "first interior picture taken in Australia."[1]

According to contemporary reviews, the one departure from the stage show was the introduction of a motor car in the scene which shows little Jessie (Elsie Rennie) leaving Paradise Alley with a bodyguard of poor children.[16]

Another reviewer said the ending was changed; the play finished in the church but Longford "introduces for a finish the restoration of Mabel to her husband and family amidst the glow of glorious Australian scenery."[17]

The famous scene from the play involving the Tin Can Band was recreated. When the film was screened a real band played behind the screen.[18]

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that

The acting throughout is of a very high standard and all the great features and powerful scenes of the drama are most vividly and clearly portrayed. The film itself is unusually good the objectionable flicker being reduced to a minimum and all the figures and background standing out with great clearness and definition. The "Tin Can Band" is here wonderfully pictured, the Little Mother is all the time excellent and the adult characters are seen to great advantage throughout.[20]

The critic from the Sydney Sunday Times said that:

Although the play is American, Mr. C. Spencer is justified in presenting the [movie]... as an example of Australian art. Everything about the play in its new form is Australian. A company which was formed in Sydney acted the melodrama for Mr. Spencer's operators, and one may recognise Bondi in the outdoor scenes — notably in the episode of the cliff house and the escape of the little heroine... After a cinematograph series of 'Australian Bushrangers,' it is a relief to see bright-faced and happy-hearted children representing the better, even if the poorer, side of life in this part of the world... Jessie, the little mother' with the Tin Can Band of youngsters, made The Fatal Wedding a success when it was first played here at the Criterion Theatre. And it is the kiddies who make the success of Mr. Spencer's reproduction under the direction of Mr. R. H. Longford. In the 'children's party' scene of the third act one song is cleverly counterfeited by a child behind the screen and 'hidden noises' lend an air of realism when the juvenile band shouts with joy or rattles the tin cans. To make up for the absence of songs at this point there is a good deal more dancing than one saw in the play itself.[16]

The Perth Sunday Times said that " The lady who plays the she-villain... is without doubt the woodenest dolt that ever spoilt good celluloid."[21]

The Bulletin said the film "has been a howling success, just as it was in its drama form, and the measure of that success is a scathing commentary on the artistic taste of Sydney public- —unless the Sydney public applauded it merely as a photographic masterpiece."[22] The same magazine later said "the thing is spectacular, and some of the situations have thrills in them, while the drivel of the "book" is unheard. The result is that the picture-goer gets his money's worth, while the old theatre-goer got too much... the choice of light does the stripling [Higgins] credit."[23]

The Fatal Wedding was a big success at the box office in Sydney – the Governor General even attended a screening.[24] It then played Melbourne and the rest of Australia and was very popular, launching the cinema careers of Longford and Lyell, as well as enabling producer Charles Cozens Spencer to establish a film studio at Rushcutter's Bay in Sydney.[6]

It was still screening in cinemas in 1914.[25]

Spencer reportedly made £5,000 from it.[26]

In 1922 Longford claimed the film made a profit of £16,000.[27]