The Gentleman Bushranger

The Gentleman Bushranger is a 1921 Australian film melodrama from director Beaumont Smith. Bushranging films were banned at the time but Smith got around this by making the plot about a man falsely accused of being a bushranger.[5]

The Gentleman Bushranger
Directed byBeaumont Smith
Produced byBeaumont Smith
Written byBeaumont Smith
Based on'A Stripe for Trooper Casey' by Roderic Quinn[1][2]
StarringDot McConville
Production
company
Beaumont Smith's Productions
Distributed byBeaumont Smith
Cecil Marks[3]
Release date
26 December 1921 (Australia)
3 February 1922 (NZ)
Running time
6,000 feet[4]
CountryAustralia
LanguageSilent

Plot

In 1857, an Englishman, Richard Lavender (Ernest Hearne), is travelling to Australia on a ship where he meets the beautiful Kitty Aronson. He is falsely accused by Peter Dargin (Tal Ordell) of murdering the ship's captain and is arrested. With the escape of an aboriginal friend, he escapes into the bush where he becomes a gold prospector. He meets Kitty, who runs a nearby selection, and they happily mine gold together until Dargin arrives and frames him for bushranger crimes. However Lavender ultimately proves his innocence.[6]

Comic relief is provided by Ah Wom Bat (John Cosgrove), a Chinese cook, and a touring theatrical company that presents a version of East Lynne in a country town.[5][7][8]

Cast
  • Dot McConville as Kitty Anson
  • Ernest T Hearne as Richard Lavender
  • Tal Ordell as Peter Dargin
  • John Cosgrove as Ah Wom Bat
  • Nada Conrade
  • Monica Mack
  • J.P. O'Neill
  • Robert MacKinnon
  • Fred Phillips
  • Henry Lawson as himself

Production

Female star Dot McConville was advertised as "the Commonwealth's premier horsewoman".[9]

The segment showing the troupe performing East Lynne was likely taken from a short films directed by John Cosgrove, An East Lynne Fiasco (1917).

The movie was shot in four weeks in October 1921. Two and a half weeks were spent on location in Bowral and Berrima, with interiors shot in Sydney at the Rushcutters Bay Studio.[5]

Reception
  • The Bulletin said the film "has some wonderfully beautiful scenic bits, but the story is a painful libel on 'A Stripe for Trooper Casey,' which it professes to follow, and is beneath criticism. So is the producing, and a great deal of the acting."
  • The Sydney Sun had no problem with the adaptation of Quinn's novel, but was distressed by anachronistic hairstyles and costumes, and found much of the acting uninspired.[10]

References
  1. "Local & General". Geraldton Guardian. WA: National Library of Australia. 14 December 1922. p. 2. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  2. "Good-bye . . . he piped full well". The Courier-Mail. Brisbane: National Library of Australia. 17 August 1949. p. 2. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  3. Ross Cooper,"Filmography: Beaumont Smith", Cinema Papers, March–April 1976 p333
  4. "Advertising". The Barrier Miner. Broken Hill, NSW: National Library of Australia. 16 May 1922. p. 2. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  5. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 111.
  6. "Advertising". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Qld.: National Library of Australia. 24 August 1922. p. 3. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  7. "The Gentleman Bushranger". The Southern Mail. 35 (1). New South Wales, Australia. 3 January 1922. p. 2. Retrieved 25 July 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. "In Movie Land". The Sun (3538). New South Wales, Australia. 3 March 1922. p. 8. Retrieved 25 July 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. "Advertising". Townsville Daily Bulletin. Qld.: National Library of Australia. 24 August 1922. p. 3. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
  10. "The Moving Row of Magic Shadow Shapes". The Sun (Sydney). New South Wales, Australia. 5 March 1922. p. 20. Retrieved 28 February 2020 – via Trove.


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