The Sentimental Bloke (1919)
Length: 109 minutes 56 seconds
Synopsis
Bill, AKA ‘The Kid’ (Arthur Tauchert), a larrikin from the Sydney dockside suburb of Woolloomooloo, gets a six-month sentence when he’s caught in a two-up game. After he’s released, he falls for Doreen (Lottie Lyell), an upright young woman who works in a pickle factory. She makes him renounce drinking, gambling and running with the local ‘push’ (or gang). They marry and although he’s not yet fully reformed, the love of a good woman helps him to find a future.
Curator’s notes
The Sentimental Bloke is regarded by many as the greatest silent film that Australia has produced. It was very popular when released in 1920 – partly because the book of verse by CJ Dennis was well-loved – but the film was largely forgotten by the 1930s, after ‘talkies’ took over. Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyell had been a successful acting duo since 1909, when she was 19 and he was 31. He had married in 1900, but his Catholic wife refused to grant a divorce, so Longford and Lyell could never solemnise their relationship the way that Arthur Tauchert, as ‘The Kid’, does in this film. Nevertheless from 1911 until her early death in 1925 from tuberculosis, they lived and worked together on a series of acclaimed and controversial films, that were generally very successful.
The Bloke, as it’s affectionately known, is remarkable for the naturalism of its acting and the humour with which it portrays a working class milieu. Dennis’s poem is set in Melbourne, but Longford and Lyell relocated it to Sydney’s Woolloomooloo, which had a well-deserved reputation as a tough, inner-city neighbourhood. The violent gangs (or ‘pushes’) had largely disappeared by the time it was made, and Australia was just emerging from the First World War. The Kid is ‘saved’ from his life as a wastrel by the love of a good woman, a suitably reformist message – but most of the fun in the film concerns sin, in its many forms.
The book, published in 1915, is set pre-War, and that may be part of what made it popular with post-War audiences: it showed the city as a colourful pageant, full of unlikely characters, horse-drawn carts (not cars), and plentiful diversion in the form of pubs and ‘two-up’ schools. The reality, in cities like Sydney and Melbourne in 1920, with thousands of maimed soldiers returning to grim prospects, was very different.
Part of what makes The Bloke so enduring is that Longford and Lyell (who collaborated on all aspects of the film) have real affection for the milieu and characters they depict. Arthur Higgins’ cinematography has an almost documentary feel in some scenes, such as the wedding reception. Film acting in 1919 was usually much more gestured than it is here. Arthur Tauchert, a former labourer himself, was performing in suburban vaudeville theatres when he was cast. His performance as Bill, the sentimental tough guy, grounds the whole film in reality. He can hardly believe his luck in finding Doreen. The possibility that he might lose her is kept very real throughout, because he’s very human, and succumbs easily to temptation. Even with its reformist message, the film never seems preachy. Rather, it had a strongly optimistic tone, a sense of hope – which may have been another reason for its success.
Secondary curator’s notes
On the 15th June 2004 a re-constructed version of The Sentimental Bloke had its premiere screening as part of the 51st Sydney Film Festival. It screened to acclaim and was later voted best feature screened in the State Theatre at that year’s festival.
The print that screened at the State Theatre was the result of two re-construction processes. The first was carried out between 1995 and 2003 and resulted in the completion of two tinted and toned mute 35-mm prints on colour stock in academy and step printed from 16 fps to 24 fps. The second, which built upon the first and used the colour negative created from the first as a starting point, was carried out between July 2003 and June 2004.
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1 (Academy full frame)
| Production company | Southern Cross Feature Film Company |
|---|---|
| Producer | Raymond Longford |
| Director | Raymond Longford |
| Scriptwriter | Raymond Longford |
| Lottie Lyell | |
| Author | CJ Dennis |
| Cast | William Coulter |
| CJ Dennis | |
| Gilbert Emery | |
| Helen Fergus | |
| Charles Keegan | |
| Lottie Lyell | |
| Margaret Reid | |
| Stanley Robinson | |
| Arthur Tauchert | |
| Harry Young |
Acknowledgements
By arrangement with the Charles Chauvel estate care of Curtis Brown.
have teacher’s notes.
