A Girl of the Bush
About A Girl of the Bush
Lorna Denver runs the Kangaroo Flat sheep station. Oswald Keane and the surveyor Tom Wilson both want to marry her. She takes in a baby who survived an attack by Aboriginal people. Tom thinks the child is hers, and she breaks with him. Oswald is murdered and Tom is arrested. The Chinese cook Sing Lee names the killer: the father of a woman Oswald had seduced.
Cast & crew
More about A Girl of the Bush
Franklyn Barrett directed and produced, the first of three films for his own company. Shooting began in October 1920 at Fremantle Station near Bathurst, on sets and on the station. The script draws on the plays The Squatter's Daughter and On Our Selection. Long passages show shearing, dipping, wool packing, horse teams, branding, horse-breaking, and a two-up game in a Sydney lane. Vera James plays Lorna. Her father bought the New Zealand rights.
Themes
In film history
It is one of the few Franklyn Barrett films that survive complete.
Audiences
The film was widely distributed and appears to have done well. Vera James's father took the New Zealand rights.
Look
Station work and Sydney lanes are filmed at length, including shearing and a two-up game, cut into the story.
Preservation
A complete print survives, unusual for Barrett. The National Film and Sound Archive holds the film.
Notes
- Jack Martin plays Tom Wilson and Herbert Linden plays Oswald Keane. Stella Southern plays Grace Girton, not Lorna.
- Sam Warr plays Sing Lee.
- Sam Warr plays the cook Sing Lee. Emma Shea plays Looe Toe.
Scenes
- Tom sees the baby and thinks it is Lorna's.
- Sing Lee names Oswald's killer after Tom is arrested.
Influenced by
- The Squatter's Daughter
- On Our Selection
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-a-girl-of-the-bush)
